Create a Spend Authorization
All travel/purchases for the university should be planned and approved prior to an employee incurring a reimbursable expense. Workday provides the spend authorization task to achieve approvals in an electronic manner.
There are two methods to access the create spend authorization action in Workday. The two methods are using the expenses worklet or performing a search for the create spend authorization task.
I. Using the Worklet
When Workday is launched the dashboard that is presented contains links to various worklets. These worklets allow the user to perform various tasks based on the user’s role within the University or security rights that have been granted to the user. The worklet used to create requisitions is called the “Purchases” worklet.
Once the user has clicked on the icon, the user is presented with a screen that allows the user to select various actions (tasks) or view items previously processed. For this document, we will focus only on the task of creating a spend authorization.
Upon clicking on the “Create Spend Authorization” action, the user is presented with a screen that allows the user to input the Spend Authorization information and expense lines for the authorization.
The following information describes the required line items in the Spend Authorization Information area.
1. Company – The company field should coincide with the location of the employee (i.e., Saint Charles or Belleville).
2. Start Date – The start date field indicates the date the reimbursable expenses are scheduled to begin.
3. End Date – The end date field indicates the date the reimbursable expenses will end.
4. Description – The description field should contain a brief description of the purpose of the authorization.
5. Business Purpose – The business purpose is a designation that is used in Workday to assist with the approval process work flow. The options available are as follows:
a. Athletic Team Travel – This option is used for all athletic sport team travel.
b. Recruitment Travel – This option is used for recruiting purposes and should be used for all athletic and non-athletic recruiting travel.
c. Student Travel – This option is used to reimburse students for any reimbursable travel.
d. Business Travel – This option is used for all University related travel that is not related to professional development, athletic team travel, or recruitment travel.
e. Professional Development – Professional development related options are broken down into three separate tiers.
i. Meeting Travel (Tier 1) – This should be used when the employee is attending a non-university required meeting.
ii. Presentation Travel (Tier 2) – This should be used when the employee is presenting at a non-university required meeting and/or taking a student or students to the presentation.
iii. Required Travel – This should be used when the employee is attending a university required professional development event/meeting.
6. Business Non-Travel – This option is used for all employee reimbursable non-travel related items (i.e., postage expense, professional memberships, etc.)
After completing the required information in the header area, the user will need to add lines by clicking on the word “Add”.
The user will continue adding lines for each expense that expected to be incurred with the current spend authorization until all planned expenses have been added.
Please note that lines added in the spend authorization can be cumulative. For instance, if the employee will be traveling for a week (5 days) meals could be one item with a quantity of “10” (two meals per day) and the per unit amount of “$15” (the estimate per meal for this scenario).
Attachments are not a requirement of the spend authorization process; however, if a department has a specific requirement to attach any internal created documents the employee will be required to attach them (i.e., NCAA).
To add an attachment, the user will select the “Attachments Tab” and attach files as needed.
When all items have been added to the spend authorization and all required documents attached, the user can select the “Submit” button in the lower left hand side.
After submitting the purchase requisition, Workday will electronically route the purchase requisition to the necessary approvers and will indicate to the user who is immediately next in the approval process.
Additionally, the user can click on the “Details and Processes” section to see the spend authorization number (beginning with “SQ-“), line item details and additional approval process flow information.
II. Using the Search Menu
Workday does not limit the user to solely work within the worklet environment. Users are free to search for action items (tasks) that can be performed using the search bar at the upper left-hand corner of the Workday screen.
When performing a search for an action item, Workday allows the user to enter partial words. An illustration of using partial words to find the create spend authorizaton task is below.
Upon selecting the Create Spend Authorization task, the Create Spend Authorization screen will appear, and the user can proceed with the steps beginning on Page 2 of this document.
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Updated March 2017