Approving a Travel Authorization as an Expense Manager

Body

Overview

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:

Completeness - required fields are filled out
Prior approvals were applied correctly
Travel and expense policy compliance
Submitted expenses are allowable
Deadlines are observed
Chartstrings and the ChartField combination are correct for each transaction
Expenses adhere to budget constraints

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.

1. Step 1

First log into the UGA Financial Management System

Click the Approvals tile.

Note: The number in the bottom right corner of the tile indicates the number of documents awaiting your approval.

2. Step 2

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.

3. Step 3

The list is filtered to only display travel authorizations.

To review a travel authorization, click the appropriate Travel Authorization .

4. Step 4

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.

5. Step 5

To review the TA line details, click the appropriate TA line.

6. Step 6

The Approval Line Detail page is displayed. From this page, you can review the reported information and accounting details.

7. Step 7

Click the View Accounting link to review the accounting details.

8. Step 8

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.

9. Step 9

Click the Close button.

10. Step 10

To return to the Travel Authorization summary page, click the Back to Header button.

11. Step 11

You would repeat the review process for each of the TA lines in the document.

12. Step 12

To see the approval path of the submitted document, click the Approval Chain link.

13. Step 13

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.

14. Step 14

Click the Close button.

15. Step 15

You can select individual TA lines to approve by clicking the checkbox in the appropriate TA line.

16. Step 16

Alternatively, click the Select All checkbox to quickly mark all the TA lines.

17. Step 17

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.