An internal user to the Equus Platform can view an employee expense report as the employee views the report online, by selecting the Employee View link for a particular voucher on the Voucher summary screen.
While the voucher is still in a draft status (before the employee submits the report), the employee’s “How Paid” and “Payment Method” options can be viewed. After the expense report is submitted only the selected values are displayed.
Viewing Employee Expense Entry Reports
Submitted Expense Reports are processed by an Equus Platform coordinator. The coordinator can access the expense report from Voucher Search option of the General Menu located on the Home tab. Enter the Report ID in the Voucher System Number and click search. Coordinators can also access Expense Reports by selecting the assignment id and selecting either the expense menu option or the vouchers menu option. Once the Voucher is selected, the expense tabs; Summary, Basic Information, Service Order, Entries, Payment, and Finalize will all be populated. Expense Reports with a Draft Status are viewable but not editable. The coordinator can access these reports and view any tab.
The voucher approval process (workflow driven) may be required in the processing of an expense report. The following two sections of this document explain the voucher approval process.
Summary Tab
Payee Name - The Payee Name field contains the assignee name.
Source - The Source field will be populated with Employee Expense Entry.
Amounts
Submitted Currency - The Submitted Currency will always be Multiple.
Requested Payment Amount - The Requested Payment Amt field will show the submitted amount in the payment currency.
Payor
Payment Method - The Payment Method field contains the payment method entered by the assignee.
Details
Invoice Number - The Invoice Number field is populated with the Expense Report ID.
Dates Covered - The Date Covered field is populated with the expense report date range.
Date Received - The Date Received field is populated with the date the expense report was submitted.
Description - The Description is the description of the expense report. Assignees can choose to enter a description. It is not a required field.
Basic Information
Details
Requested Payment Currency - The Requested Payment Currency is the payment currency configured in the expense report.
Date Covered - The Date Covered field is populated with the date range entered by the assignee.
Date Received - The Date Received field is populated with the date the expense report was submitted.
Invoice Number - The Invoice Number is the Expense Report ID.
Description - The Description field contains the description of the Expense Report. The assignee can choose to enter a description to expense reports. It is not a required field.
Entries
The Entries tab lists all the individual expenses entered by the assignee. The coordinator can determine if the expense is In Policy, Exception, or Denied. This can be done within the individual entry detail screen or at the Expense Entry tab (without having to select View/Edit each line item). This functionality is dependent on the Company configuration.
In this configuration the coordinator can indicate the policy status in one of the following two ways:
Select the policy status from a drop down list and apply to all entries. This method still allows the user to change an individual line item (via radio buttons) while still on the Expense Entry tab.
Select the desired policy status (via radio buttons) at an entry line level.
This feature is generally used when vouchers are created via Employee Expense Entry. However, it could also be used to update a manually entered voucher.
Approval Process
The voucher approval process is configured through the system-level Workflow Templates screen. Voucher approvals are not available without the use of workflow. The workflow needs to be published before it will become a useable workflow. Please see the Voucher Approval Process Workflow documentation for more details.
Note: A sample approval process workflow is available for copying and modification.
Employee Interaction
The Approval process can require an assignment-level contact. If the approver isn’t specified for the employee then the employee will be prompted to enter the contact information for the approver. In this case, the approval process requires contact information for the employee’s Host HR Contact. Required contact help is available on the employee expense report template screen in the “List View Approver Contact Information Prompt Help” section.
The employee will be able to review the status of the voucher by viewing the expense report status on the My Expense Reports screen.
Note: The employee will NOT be able to enter expense reports until all required approver contact information is added.
Approver Interaction
A voucher approval can be sent to a user or non-user of the system. The approver will receive an email from the voucher approval workflow. The email will include a link to a view of the voucher that does not require the approver to log into the system.
Note: Each email and its content are configurable within the Voucher Approval Workflow Template.
The link is only editable until the approver clicks the “Finished” button and submits their approval decision and comments. From this point on, the voucher will be viewable from this link in a read-only manner.
Approval help can be configured in the Expense Report Approval View Help (HTML Capable) section of the Expense Report Configuration Template.
Required approvers are added by adding approver contact types to the Required Approver Contact Types for Voucher Approval section of the Expense Report Template. The possible values are those available in the Relocation/Assignment Contacts section of the Relocation/Assignment screen.
Approvers are added by relocation/assignment in the relocation contacts section of the relocation/assignment screen. Both the approver’s name and email address are required for voucher approvals.
Note: There is no identification of which contacts are required for voucher approvals.
Internal Approver Interaction
Internal users of the system can view a voucher’s approval progress by selecting the Finalize tab on the voucher screen.
Re-Routing a Voucher Approval Request
The voucher approval process can be re-started by selecting the “Re-Route” button. Re-routing the approval will send another notification to the 1st approver.
In the case where the approval request has been re-routed or cancelled, the approver will see the following message when using the approval request link:
For more information about employee expense report submittal and configuration please see the Portal Employee Expense Entry User Manual.
Budgets
The Assignment Budget allows users to create a single budget for an assignment that expenses can be tracked against. Budgets are for the entire duration of the assignment and can be adjusted if a user has rights to edit the Assignment Budget screen section within the Vouchers screen.
Note: View rights to the Assignment Budget screen section are required for the budgeting section to appear.
Budget Type – The Budget Type defines what account types will be included when determining the assignment’s total amount of budget spent. The Expense budget type only includes accounts with an expense or business expense type.
Assignment Budget – The Assignment Budget is the total budget for the assignment and can be in Home, Host, Company or System Currency.
Actual Amount Incurred – The Actual Amount Incurred is the amount of financials incurred to date per the budget type and is in the same currency as the Assignment Budget. A voucher must be in a status of Approved, Locked, Submitted or Paid to be included in the Actual Amount Incurred. Expenses that are denied are not included in the Actual Amount Incurred.
If approving a voucher will result in the Actual Amount Incurred to exceed the Assignment Budget a warning will appear upon saving the voucher in a status of Approved, Locked, Submitted or Paid.