Workflow & Approvals
Workflow is the method for routing necessary information to appropriate people so that they know when an action or approval is required by them. Approval is the act of granting permission for an activity or event based on authority and accountability for the dollars and the activity or event. There are many instances within the University's existing financial business processes when approvals are required, and the new financial system should significantly streamline the approvals process. (View a Workflow and Approval Routing Processes grid for the new financial system.)
Setup of approvals in the new financial system will happen up front. Approvers and preparers will be designated as such in the system based on their job functions and their training and assessment results. Details about specific classes that are planned for approvers and preparers can be found at the EFS Web site.
If an employee takes the associated training classes and passes the assessments, they may serve both as a preparer and as an approver, but will not be allowed to approve transactions they have prepared.
One of the great features of the new system is that preparers won’t need to worry about who the approvers are, because the system will be programmed to route documents automatically to approvers based on the DeptID associated with the document. Approvals will then occur online for most transactions. Please see the section below on Procurement Card (PCard) approvals, however, as they will differ from other transactions detailed here.
In most cases, there will be one primary and one backup approver per module per DeptID, along with one primary Certified Approver and one backup Certified Approver per DeptID (but not per module). Approvers will be notified via e-mail and online worklist when there is something awaiting their approval (unless they use an alternate configuration in their notification setup). Documents not approved by a primary approver within a to-be-determined timeframe will route automatically to a backup approver, with the exception of journal entries, which will route both to the primary and backup approver concurrently. E-procurement requisitions and non-purchase-order vouchers of less than $100 will auto-approve.
A new emergency approver role will be defined at the central level to support the emergency approval of critical transactions at times when both the primary and the backup approvers are unavailable. This role will be limited to a small group of individuals throughout the University who have special training and knowledge of the particular areas for which they will be emergency approvers. It is intended that these approvers will be used rarely and only in instances when waiting for an approval will put the University at a financial disadvantage.
Split distributions will be possible in the new financial system. When there is more than one DeptID associated with a transaction, the transaction will automatically route to multiple approvers, with the exception of General Ledger journals. All approvers associated with that transaction must approve it before the transaction can move on and be processed.
For most transactions, approvers will have the option of approving or denying the transaction, or of electronically returning it to the preparer for additional details or updates. If the document is returned to the preparer for additional information, it can be amended and resubmitted for approval.
Procurement Card (PCard) Approvals
The workflow and approval process will be different for the Procurement Card (PCard) than for other transactions, because the PCard process operates off proxy rights rather than PeopleSoft-delivered system workflow.
PCard approvers will be designated based on a cardholder, not on a DeptID. There can be multiple department approvers and Certified Approvers identified for each cardholder, but it’s recommended that departments set up no more than one primary and one backup reconciler, one primary and one backup approver, and one primary and one backup Certified Approver per cardholder. A Certified Approver cannot also be a department approver for a given cardholder.
Only one department approver and one Certified Approver will be able to officially approve each transaction online, but multiple people could view the transaction prior to online approval being granted. Once online approval is granted, it cannot be undone.
The roles associated with PCard transactions are reviewers, reconcilers, approvers, and Certified Approvers. Reviewers will have view-only privileges, and may be, for example, administrative staff that go in to view a transaction in order to verify that all the receipts have been collected for that transaction.
Reconcilers will be assigned to specific PCard accounts. They will need to check those accounts for activity on a regular basis to see if there are transactions awaiting reconciliation, as there will be no e-mail notification or online worklist to notify them when transactions are awaiting reconciliation.
Once a reconciler verifies PCard transactions, those transactions will not automatically route to a department approver. Reconcilers will be notified by their departments who the approvers are for a given account, and will be responsible for notifying the department approver via offline e-mail that there are transactions awaiting his or her approval. There is no automatic system-delivered e-mail notification or online worklist for department approvers to review.
When there is sponsored activity on a PCard, Certified Approvers will be notified via system-delivered e-mail that there is a transaction needing their approval. Because the Certified Approver function was a complete customization (addition) to the system, it was possible to include the functionality of system-delivered e-mail notification. The other roles (reviewer, reconciler, department approver), which were included in the out-of-the-box system without the functionality of e-mail notification for PCard transactions, would have required customization that was out of scope in terms of budget and timeframe for the project.
For accounts with sponsored activity, Certified Approvers can approve transactions only after the transaction has been reconciled. They must complete their approvals before a department approver will be able to do so. Procedures will be defined at the department level for how the CA will notify the reconciler and/or the department approver when the CA has completed his or her approval of a transaction, as there is no automatic notification process currently available in the system for reconcilers and department approvers.
Approvals for PCard transactions will be by line and will be done online. Online comments can be added at the distribution line level as well. Approvers will simply change the Status field for an approved transaction to “Approved.” When Purchasing Detail reports are printed, all transactions will be combined on the report, sorted by merchant. Page breaks will be by card number, not by individual transaction or by merchant.
When two departments share expenses on a given PCard transaction, the department that holds the card will need to notify the department sharing the expense that the expense needs approval, and will need to obtain the other department’s approval offline. Only one approver can change the status of the transaction in the system to “Approved.”
Signatures from cardholders can be obtained on the Purchasing Detail report, which will be sent to Disbursement Services along with the original transaction receipts. Journal ledger transactions for PCard transactions that have been forced to reconcile (i.e., that have gone past the 10-day grace period for reconciliation) will be entered by the journal entry specialist at the cluster level.
Training for PCard transactions in the new system will be offered by Training Services, as with other classes on the new financial system.
For More Information
For more information about the workflow and approvals process:
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