The responsibility of an Expense Approver in reviewing a travel authorization is to verify policy compliance and that the travel cost estimates are reasonable. You should also review the TA lines for appropriate fund sources.
When reviewing a travel authorization, an Expense Approver should ensure:
Expense Approvers should Push Back transactions that do not meet standards or require correction or additional information. They should also monitor status or pending transactions and coordinate efforts to jump-start workflow as needed.
Additional reviewer guidance can be found at the resources below.
Tutorial Resources
Quick Start for Approvers
Travel and Expense Approval Basic Workflow: Roles and Responsibilities
Approval Action Matrix
Financial Review and Analysis Guide
Deny vs Send Back
Temporary Approvers Quick Start
This article will walk you through the steps to review and take appropriate action on a Travel Authorization as a Distributed Expense Manager.
First log into https://hcm-sso.onehcm.usg.edu/
Click the Approvals tile.
Note: The number in the bottom right corner of the tile indicates the number of documents awaiting your approval.
The Pending Approvals page is displayed. From this page, you can review and take actions on submitted documents.
To filter the documents to only display travel authorities, click the Travel Authorization menu option.
The list is filtered to only display travel authorizations.
To review a travel authorization, click the appropriate Travel Authorization .
Example shown here: click the Travel Authorization for Rosie Matthews .
The selected Travel Authorization summary page is displayed.
As a Distributed Expense Manager, it is your responsibility to review all travel cost estimates and determine their reasonableness. You must also review the TA lines for appropriate fund sources.
To review the TA line details, click the appropriate TA line.
Example shown here: click the Domestic Pay by Employee object.
The Approval Line Detail page is displayed. From this page, you can review the reported information and accounting details.
Click the View Accounting link to review the accounting details.
The Accounting window is displayed showing the ChartField combination for the selected travel authorization. Review the information and make sure that all fields are accurate and that the funding source is appropriate.
Click the Close button.
To return to the Travel Authorization summary page, click the Back to Header button.
You would repeat the review process for each of the TA lines in the document.
To see the approval path of the submitted document, click the Approval Chain link.
The Approval Chain window is displayed. From the list, you can see any comments made by prior approvers, such as the HR Reports To Supervisor for the employee.
You can select individual TA lines to approve by clicking the checkbox in the appropriate TA line.
Example shown here: click the Domestic Pay by Employee checkbox.
Alternatively, click the Select All checkbox to quickly mark all the TA lines.
Expense Approvers have four functions available to them: Approve, Deny, Hold, and Sendback. We will go through each function to show the differences. On this page you can see the Approve and Deny options.
Click the More button to see additional approver options.
If you wish to halt the document's progress, you can put the request on hold by clicking the Hold button.
It is required to enter comments for any action other than APPROVE. Comments should tell the employee why the document is not being approved.
Note: A window similar to this, asking for comments, will appear no matter what action you decide to take.
If you decide to return the document to the initiator for edits, you would click the Sendback button.
Note: Sendback allows the employee to edit and resubmit.
Click the Sendback button.
When you Deny a TA or TA line, the transaction is stopped and cannot be edited. The employee would then need to create and submit a new TA if it was still needed.
Click the Approve button.
To leave comment regarding the approval of the document, enter appropriate information into the Approver Comments field.
Example shown here: enter "Approved by FC - 5/17/2019".
Click the Submit button.
The Pending Approvals page is displayed once again. A green bar will appear across the top of the page, notifying you the report was successfully approved.
The initiator is notified via email of the approval.
If the proposed travel is international, the travel authorization will go to the Office of Global Engagement for approval.
Otherwise, the travel authorization is fully approved and the employee is notified.