Maintaining roles and data in eExpenses

Budget-holder approvers are assigned to a particular cost centre or project sub-task. They are responsible for:

• Confirming that the activity has taken place and is legitimate to charge to their budget
• Considering the Expenses Principles and any relevant restrictions (for example, donation, trust fund or any departmental terms and conditions)

The How to review and approve expenses claims webpage gives full information on the responsibilities of budget-holders.

Budget-holders do not have a financial approval limit.

Budget-holder approvers are managed separately for cost centres and projects:

• Cost centres: 
  • This role is optional for cost centres
  • Use the eExpenses Approver and Administrative Roles form to add, amend or remove budget-holder approvers
• Projects:
  • This role is required for projects and should be the Principal Investigator (PI) or task manager in most cases
  • The Oracle Top Task Manager is added to eExpenses each time a project is set up
  • Use the eExpenses Approver and Administrative Roles form to make amendments

Only one budget-holder approver can be set up for each cost centre or project code but each budget-holder can set up delegates to cover for them (for example, for annual leave) via their profile in eExpenses.

Authorised approvers are responsible for the review and approval of expense claims. The How to review and approve expenses claims page gives full information on the responsibilities of authorised approvers.

Authorised approvers are managed in eExpenses through ‘master accounts’ to which named approvers are added as delegates. This allows for more than one approver at each level, to manage workload and cover absences. There are three levels in the eExpenses hierarchy:

• £0.01: finance team review of claims
• £1,000: financial approval of claims
• £10,000: financial approval of claims

A claim for more than £10,000 should be split over more than one claim in eExpenses, if it is for multiple items.  If it is a claim for a single item, it should be discussed with the HAF (Head of Administration and Finance) or equivalent.

It is advisable to include at least two approvers at each level in the hierarchy:

• To provide cover, for example for holidays or absence (it is not possible to set up temporary delegations or vacation rules in eExpenses)
• As claims cannot be self-approved, if a claimant is the only person with a specific approval role their submitted claim will not be approved and a request to add an additional approver will need to be completed

Use the eExpenses Approver and Administrative Roles form to add, amend or remove authorised approvers.

When deciding who should fulfil authorised approver roles, consider:  

• An expense claim will flow up the hierarchy until it reaches an approver with a high enough limit to approve it (for example, a claim for £5,000 would be approved by all three levels)
• An approver can be in more than one level (this may be useful for small departments with limited staff to obtain sufficient cover) but means the same person approving some claims more than once
• The majority of expense claims are for up to £1,000 which means the people delegated this approval limit will be authorising the majority of expense claims for your department
• If your HAF (or equivalent) should approve the majority of claims, they should be made the approver level 2 (authorisation limit of up to £1,000) and you then have options to consider for approval level 3 (authorisation limit of up to £10,000):
  • HAF: which means they approve claims of more than £1,000 and up to £10,000 twice
  • Head of department
  • Divisional contact:
    • Divisional teams have agreed to be approvers at the £10,000 limit if required (for example, in smaller departments)
    • If you want to add a divisional contact for claims of up to £10,000, please contact your DFC (Divisional Financial Controller) before making the request

Additional approval is required for claims from senior staff as set out on the How to review and approve expenses claims page. These claims flow through the department approval chain and are then additionally approved by the appropriate named senior approver.

The named approver flow forms part of the Expenses Process put in place to support the Financial Regulations. If you have any queries, please contact financial.assurance@admin.ox.ac.uk to discuss.

Use the eExpenses Senior Staff Approver Request form   (XLSM) to add, amend or remove senior staff approvers.

• A preview delegate can be assigned to preview each claim in an approver's approval queue. This delegate cannot approve the claim; instead, they can perform relevant checks, add comments or notes and, if necessary, send back to the employee for corrections.  When ready, the delegate notifies the approver, via the system, that the claim is ready for review
• The preview delegate also has the ability to view all claims in an approver's approval queue or claims that have been approved in the past.  This is useful when claims and associated receipts need to be collected for any reason, for example project audits or review
• The preview delegate should be assigned at the 1 pence or £1,000 level to ensure visibility of relevant claims because assigning at the £10,000 level only provides access to claims of more than £1,000
• If you are an authorised approver at the 1p, £1,000 or £10,000 level for a department, you cannot also be a preview delegate at that level for that code 

Use the eExpenses Approver and Administrative Roles form to add, amend or remove preview delegates.

• The BI manager can run reports in SAP Concur eExpenses (see the Reporting on expenses webpage for more details including the limitations of reporting)
• BI managers are assigned at the department level (there is no hierarchy in eExpenses to link departments to divisions or subdivisions) so, for example, NDORMS would need to set up BI managers for three separate departments (BX: NDORMS, HF: Botnar, AZ: KIR) not for the subdivision NDORMS 127
• A single BI manager can be set up per department

Use the eExpenses Approver and Administrative Roles form to add, amend or remove BI managers.