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Finance Approval

After an expense report has been submitted by an employee and approved by management, it must then be approved once more by the finance department before it is moved forward for payment.

Approving or Rejecting an Expense Report

  1. Click Finance Review. This shows a list of all expense reports that have been submitted by employees and approved by management.

    If there is an icon in the Info column, this indicates that the report on this row contains expense claim items with policy breaches.

    If you are a super finance approver, you can select from three options above the grid: All, Assigned to me and Stuck.

    • Select All to see all expense reports in the "awaiting approval" stage, regardless of which approver they are assigned to.

    • Select Assigned to me to only see expense reports which have been assigned to you via the approval group workflow (the default view available to all finance approvers).

    • Select Stuck to only see expense reports which have become stuck due to invalid or missing ERP+ user data.

  2. Right-click the report you wish to review, or left-click the report and click the menu icon , then click Review Expense Report. This takes you to the Report Details window for that report.

    This screen shows a breakdown of each expense claim item contained within the expense report. If you wish, click the collapse button in the top-right of the screen to collapse the header, allowing you to see more items at once. If there is an icon in the Info column, this indicates that the item on this row contains policy breaches.

  3. To view the full details of an expense claim item listed in the report, right-click the item on the list, or left-click the item and click the menu icon , and click Review. This opens the Manage Expense Claim Item window for that item.

  4. There are several buttons at the bottom of the window with which you can interact with the claim item. Click the or buttons to approve or reject the item, respectively. Click the and buttons to move between claim items within the report you are reviewing. Click the button to approve the item and immediately move to the next, or if you are on the last item in the report, click the

    button to approve the item and return to the Report Details screen.

  5. If the claimant did not use multiple costings, the option will be available to you to split the VAT under Cost Details. To do this:

    1. Click Multi VAT Lines. A plus button will appear to the right.

    2. Click the plus button to add a new VAT line. You can add up to four VAT lines if necessary.

    3. For each VAT line, select the VAT code from the drop-down list in the middle, and enter the amount you wish to apply to that VAT code in the field to the left. The fields on the right contain the total VAT amount for each line, and will update automatically based on your selections. The fields on the left must add up to the total claim amount.

  6. Depending on the active Expense Parameters, you may also be able to modify the Expense Type, Billable to Client and/or the Analysis Details of an expense item.

  7. To approve or reject an individual expense claim item from the Report Details screen, click or in the Approval Status column next to the item in question. The button you click will light up to indicate that the item has been approved or rejected. If you wish to approve all or most of the items in the report, click the button to automatically light up the button next to every item in the report. You can then still click the button next to individual items. Note: your company may have a policy to not allow the button.

  8. To leave a comment against an expense claim item, click the box in the Comment column next to the item in question (you will see a pencil icon when you hover over this box) and enter your comment, then click away to save.

  9. To save the changes you have made while reviewing an expense report, click .

  10. Once you have reviewed every item in the report, click to submit the report to COINS ERP+ for further processing. Alternatively, click to reject the expense report and send it back to the claimant.


Suspicious Items

When you review an expense report, some of the expense claim items contained within may automatically be flagged as “potentially suspicious”. This is to help you identify fraudulent claims.

There are two different criteria for claim items to be flagged as potentially suspicious:

  • There are two or more expense claim items of the same date and expense type, in the same expense report. This may indicate that the claimant has claimed for the same expense multiple times, or split the same expense into multiple items to circumvent the maximum claim amount on individual items. Potentially suspicious items of this nature are marked by a white flag https://i.gyazo.com/cb3a45ddf57f4ba41e1bcd1a163f911c.png.

  • An expense claim item of the same expense type and amount has already been submitted (this includes items from other reports and other claimants). This may indicate that multiple claimants are claiming the same expense. Potentially suspicious items of this nature are marked by a black flag https://i.gyazo.com/44296c0e2b7142f3fb45ea80f27fc084.png.

Your company may have policies to disable this feature for certain expense types and claimants, for example, if people pay to park their cars in the same car park every day.

To view potentially suspicious items:

Open the Report Details screen, as explained in Approving or Rejecting an Expense Report. If there are potentially suspicious items in the report, they will be marked by a black flag https://i.gyazo.com/44296c0e2b7142f3fb45ea80f27fc084.pngor a white flag https://i.gyazo.com/cb3a45ddf57f4ba41e1bcd1a163f911c.pngin the Info column on the row of the item in question. See above for explanations of what each flag means.

If there is a black flag:

  1. Right-click the marked item, or left-click the item and click the menu icon , then click Investigate. This opens the View Similar Claim Items window, which shows a list of all previously submitted claim items of the same expense type and amount, across all claimants.

  2. To view the full details of an item in the View Similar Claim Items window, right-click the item, or left-click the item and click the menu icon , then click View. This opens a read-only version of the Manage Expense Claim Item window for the item.

  3. Once you have ascertained whether the item is genuinely suspicious, you can approve or reject it as normal.

If there is a white flag:

You must manually find and view the related potentially suspicious items within the Report Details screen.

  1. Click the Info field at the top of the grid. This groups the potentially suspicious items together, making it easier to find them all on the list.

  2. To view an item marked by a white flag, right-click the item, or left-click the item and click the menu icon , then click View. Do this for each of the marked items to check for possible duplicates. Note that if there are two or more sets of similar items within the report, they will all be marked with the same white flag icon https://i.gyazo.com/cb3a45ddf57f4ba41e1bcd1a163f911c.pngand you must differentiate them yourself.

  3. If there are items marked with a black flag https://i.gyazo.com/44296c0e2b7142f3fb45ea80f27fc084.png in the report, you should also check these against the white flag https://i.gyazo.com/cb3a45ddf57f4ba41e1bcd1a163f911c.pngitems when checking for duplicates. This is because an item that meets the criteria for being marked with both a white flag and a black flag will only be marked with a black flag.

  4. Once you have ascertained which items, if any, are genuinely suspicious, you can approve or reject them as normal.


Expense Reports

The Expense Reports screen contains a list expense reports from every company you have access to. On this screen, you can view expense reports at any point from the draft stage up until they are paid in ERP+. You can also reassign reports which are awaiting manager approval or finance approval.

To view a report, right-click the report you wish to view, or left-click the report and click the menu icon , then click View.

To reassign a report, right-click the report you wish to reassign, or left-click the report and click the menu icon , then click Reassign. See Delegating Approval for further information on report reassignment.


Expense Claim Items

The Expense Claim Items screen contains a list of claim items from every company you have access to. On this screen, you can view claim items at any point from the draft stage up until they are submitted to ERP+.

To view the full details of a claim item, right-click the claim item, or left-click the item and click the menu icon , then click View Claim Item. This opens the Manage Expense Claim Item – View Only window for that item.


Viewing Historical Expense Reports

You may wish to view a record of all the reports you have financially reviewed and submitted for payment. To do this:

  1. Click Historical Expense Reports. This shows a list of all expense reports you have reviewed and submitted for payment.

    If there is an icon in the Info column, this indicates that the report on this row contains items with policy breaches.

  2. To view the full details of a report, right-click the report, or left-click the report and click the menu icon , then click View Expense Report. This takes you to the Report Details screen that you will have seen when you first reviewed the report.

  3. To view the full details of an item within a report, right-click the item, or left-click the item and click the menu icon , then click View. This opens a read-only version of the Manage Expense Claim Item window for that item.

  4. To export the Historical Expense Reports grid, click the three dots button in the top-right of the grid, then click Export. This begins a download of a CSV file containing the data. When the file is ready, it will appear at the bottom of your browser.


Reassigning an Expense Report

As a finance approver, you can reassign expense reports to other finance approvers. Once you have reassigned a report, the report is removed from your Finance Review workbench and moved to the workbench of the approver you chose to reassign it to. From that point, responsibility for review and approval of that expense report is transferred to the new approver.

It is also possible to designate a time period during which all expense reports which would have been submitted to you for approval will instead be submitted to another approver. See Delegating Approval for more details.

To reassign an expense report:

  1. Click Review Expense Reports. This shows a list of all expense reports that have been submitted by employees who have you as their approving manager, or delegated to you by another approving manager.

  2. Right-click the report you wish to delegate, or left-click the report and click the menu icon , then click Reassign. This opens the Redirect Approval to Another User window.

  3. Select the approver to whom you wish to delegate the report from the New Approver menu.

  4. Optionally enter a reason for the delegation in the Reason box. This reason will be visible to the new approver when they receive the report.

  5. Click to reassign the report.


Delegating Approval

As a finance approver, you can delegate approval to other finance approvers. This can be useful if you will be unable to perform your duties as an approver for some time period. Once you have set up delegation, all expense reports that would have been submitted to you are instead submitted to another approver for a specified period of time.

It is also possible to reassign individual expense reports to another approver after they have already been submitted to you. See Reassigning an Expense Report for details.

To delegate approval:

  1. Click your username or avatar, then click the Preferences icon .

    This opens the User Preferences window.

  2. Click Delegation Options. This opens the Delegations Options screen.

  3. On the Delegation Options screen, click .

  4. Enter dates in the From and To fields to specify the period of delegation. You can use the calendar lookup, type the dates manually, or use standard Coins shorthand e.g. $+2w to mean “two weeks after today”.

  5. Select the finance approver to whom you wish to delegate from the Finance drop-down list. If you are also a management approver, you can also select a delegate for your management approval responsibilities from the Approver drop-down list.

  6. Click to save your delegate(s).

After clicking , any new expense reports submitted to you for approval between the dates you specified will instead be sent to your delegate(s), however you will still be responsible for any approval requests you have already been sent.


Notifications

Certain events that occur within the Expenses application can be reported to you in the form of notifications. These notifications can be delivered within the web app, within the mobile app or via email. You can toggle which events you would like to receive notifications for, and how you would like to receive those notifications, in Notification Preferences.

  1. Click your username or avatar, then click the Notifications icon . This opens a list of the most recent notifications you have received across all POP Apps you have access to.

  2. Click the cog icon at the top-right of the Notifications list. This opens the Notification Preferences window.

  3. Click Core to open the drop-down menu and select Expenses to view the Expenses-related notifications. If you have another Expenses user role in addition to being a finance approver, select Finance from the right-hand drop-down menu to see only the finance notifications.

  4. Tick/untick a box to enable/disable notifications for the event on that row via the method in that column. Any changes you make are instantly saved. See below for an explanation of each event.

Expense Report Approval Request

If ticked, you will be notified when an expense report is submitted for your approval.

Notify Users of Delegation

If ticked, you will be notified when another finance approver delegates their approval responsibilities to you.

Expense Report submission to OA failure

If ticked, you will be notified when a report you have submitted fails to get to ERP +.

Past Due Reports Notification

If ticked, you may be notified a certain number of days after an expense report has been submitted for your approval if you have not yet actioned the report. Note that Expenses Setup users decide how many days must pass before you receive these notifications; if they choose to disable these notifications, you will not receive any, even if the boxes are ticked.

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