Create Expense Report
The Expense Report process in Workday is used to reimburse employees for out-of-pocket (OOP) business expenses and to reconcile college-issued purchasing card (Pcard) transactions. This guide explains how to create an expense report.
Overview
An expense report can include a combination of items:
- Out-of-Pocket Expenses (OOPs): Business-related expenses paid for with an employee’s own funds (instead of college funds) that the employee requires reimbursement for.
- Pcard (Corporate Card) Transactions: Business expenses charged to a college-issued purchasing card. These transactions are loaded into Workday and must be reconciled and assigned to the correct Worktags on an expense report.
- Personal Pcard (Corporate Card) Transactions: Charges made with a college-issued purchasing card that are not valid work expenses and must be repaid to Macalester.
- Mileage: Reimbursement for the use of a personal vehicle for business travel (daily commutes are not eligible). Gas purchases for personal vehicles are not an allowable college expense; mileage reimbursement must be requested instead. Gas purchases are only allowed for business-related vehicle rentals.
Pcard Rules and Policies
While Workday facilitates the reconciliation of Pcard transactions, all usage is subject to Macalester policies. An itemized receipt is required for all Pcard expenses. Transactions made with the Pcard will be automatically loaded into your Workday profile. You must reconcile these transactions on an expense report in a timely manner to ensure they are correctly categorized and attributed to the proper Cost Center, Grant, Project, etc.
Creating Expense Reports on Behalf of Others
All delegation roles that were in place in Wells Fargo for employees to reconcile Pcards on behalf of another cardholder have now been transferred to Workday. If you require any changes to your Pcard delegations, please contact [email protected].
Before Starting this Task
Before creating an expense report, have the following information available:
- Itemized receipts for all expenses.
- A description for all expenses.
- The dates on which the expenses were incurred.
- Any relevant Worktags, such as a Grant or Project, that should be charged.
Mobile Considerations: Capturing receipts is easier on mobile, but for tasks like splitting expense lines and adjusting Worktags most people find it easier to use a desktop computer.
When to Split Expense Reports: To streamline the approval process, it is preferred to use one expense report per set of Worktags (aka budget). However, we recognize this isn’t always feasible—especially when splitting a single credit card transaction across multiple Worktags—so multi-Worktag reports will still be processed.
Create an Expense Report
These steps are best performed on a desktop or laptop for a complete view of all fields. Video tutorials can be found at the end of the written tutorial.
- Using the navigation sidebar on the left side of the Workday, hover over the Employee tab and select the Expenses Hub.
- Select Create Expense Report, and complete the initial expense report form, also called the expense report header.
- Leave the Expense Report Date as the current date.
- The Company and Company on Expense Line should default to Macalester.
- Important: The Worktags are defaulted to your job position’s budget and may not be the Worktags you use most frequently for expenses. Change the Worktags here to the Worktags you want to use for the entire expense report.
- The Worktags entered here will be defaulted to all expense lines added to the expense report.
- You will still be able to change Worktags on individual expense lines if needed.
- As much as possible, use a single set of Worktags for all of the transactions on a given expense report. For example, submit a separate expense report for departmental purchases, and a separate expense report for your grant purchases. A single Pcard transaction cannot be split between two separate expense reports, so you’ll need to do that on a single expense report.
- Under Credit Card Transactions, select the Pcard transactions you want to include on the expense report. You do not need to select any if this expense report is just for out-of-pocket expenses.
- Select OK to create the expense report. You should now have three tabs:
- The Header tab is what you just created by starting the expense report.
- Note: The Reimbursement Payment Type defaults to your Payment Elections choice for USA Expenses. Reimbursements are only issued for expense reports when out of pocket expenses are added.
- The Attachments tab should NOT be used. Receipts should be attached to the relevant expense on the expense line.
- The Expense Lines tab is where you will reconcile Pcard transactions and add any out-of-pocket (OOP) expenses.
- The Header tab is what you just created by starting the expense report.
- Select the Expense Lines tab. Credit card transactions you selected in step 2 will be displayed here. This is where you will complete remaining reconciliation steps.
- To add additional Pcard transactions or OOPs, select Add and choose the appropriate type in the dropdown menu.
- Credit Card Transactions – for adding additional Pcard transactions you forgot to include during the initial expense report creation.
- New Expense – for adding a new OOP expense.
- After clicking New Expense, UNcheck the ‘Paid with Corporate Card’ box on the line item below the drag and drop receipt area at the top.
- OOP expenses can only be entered in USD. If an OOP expense is in another currency, you have two options to determine the USD amount:
- Preferred Method: Check your bank statement – the converted USD amount should be shown.
- Alternate Method: Use the VISA Exchange Rate Calculator to convert the amount to USD.
- Change the transaction date to the date on your OOP receipt.
- Set the bank fee to your bank’s rate. If you don’t know your bank’s rate, set it to 0% or use the preferred method above and check your bank statement to determine the exact amount you paid in USD.
- For each expense line, complete the following fields:
- Attachment/Receipt: At the top of each expense line there is a section for dropping/selecting files. Attach the itemized receipt for the expense.
- Receipts must be attached to the corresponding expense line, not the Attachments tab in the expense report.
- Expenses of $50 or more must have an attached receipt, or else the Expense Report cannot be submitted.
- Complete a Missing Receipt Declaration for missing receipts of $50 or more. A final PDF will be emailed to you after signing and submitting the form. Attach this final PDF as the receipt on the expense in Workday.
- If the purchase was made with Federal Grant Funds, a Missing Receipt Declaration must be submitted regardless of dollar amount.
- For Mileage: use a screenshot of Google (or other) maps showing the route driven and total miles.
- Complete a Missing Receipt Declaration for missing receipts of $50 or more. A final PDF will be emailed to you after signing and submitting the form. Attach this final PDF as the receipt on the expense in Workday.
- Expense Date & Total Amount: Will autofill for Pcard expenses. For OOPs, enter the date the expense was incurred and the total expense amount.
- Expense Item: Select the item that best describes the purchase (e.g., Airfare, Office Supplies).
- Expense Activity Date: This field is important because it drives Prepaid and Postpaid expense reporting. It will appear will appear after an expense item is chosen. Enter the date based on whether the expense was for Goods or Services.
- For Goods, use the date the goods were received.
- For Services, use the date the service occurred (for multi-day services, use the first date). I.e. for flights, use the departure date.
- Quantity: This field will only appear for mileage expenses. Enter the number of miles driven. The system will apply the current rate and calculate the total.
- Memo: Enter a description of the expense and its purpose.
- Worktags: Ensure the correct Grant, Project, or other required Worktags are assigned to the expense line.
- Fund, Cost Center, and Function are ALWAYS required.
- See Worktag Overview for more detailed Worktag information
- See Activity Codes for more detailed information on optional Activity Code usage and tracking
- FTR Funds: In the Program field type in your last name and hit enter.
- Your personal FTR worktag should show up in the list as “PGXXXXX FTR – Last Name, First Name”.
- Select your FTR, and the other Worktags will autofill. No other changes are needed on the Worktags.
- Splitting Between Multiple Worktags: To split a single expense between multiple Worktags (budgets), you must select an Expense Item first. To make a split easier, you should also select the Expense Activity Date before doing the split.
- After selecting an Expense Item, you will see the Itemization fields show up to the right under Item Details. Click Add.
- A new window will pop up. Enter the relevant details for the first portion of the split.
- Total Amount: amount for this portion of the split.
- Memo: description for this portion of the split.
- Company: leave as Macalester College.
- Worktags: change to the Worktags that will be paying for this portion of the split.
- Personal Expense: if part of a Pcard charge is personal, click the Personal Expense checkbox on the part of the split that is personal.
- Click Add to add another line to the split, and complete the same fields to reflect the other portion of the split. You can add as many splits as needed.
- Fund, Cost Center, and Function are ALWAYS required.
- Attachment/Receipt: At the top of each expense line there is a section for dropping/selecting files. Attach the itemized receipt for the expense.
- Reconciling Personal Pcard Charges: If you accidentally make a personal purchase on your Macalester Pcard, do the following:
- Check the Personal Expense box on the transaction towards the bottom (after the Worktags section).
- Select the Expense Item that best describes the original purchase.
- In the memo field, enter ‘Personal charge‘.
- Worktags for personal charges do not need to be changed. Your department/budget will not be charged. The system is configured to put all charges checked as Personal into the College’s personal charge receivable account.
- Your approver will still need to approve the personal charge. This is for visibility purposes, and so your supervisor/approver can be aware of how your Pcard is being used.
- Partial Personal Charges: If only part of a Pcard charge is personal, follow the steps to split the expense above and check the Personal Expense box on the personal portion of the split.
- After submitting the expense report, follow the Repaying Personal Pcard Charges steps below on this page.
- If you forgot to check the Personal Expense box on a personal charge on a prior expense report, notify the Pcard Administrator via email as soon as possible.
- Once all lines are complete and accurate, click Submit.
- An error message will display if a required field is left empty or has a logic error. Select the error message to view the details, make the required changes, and select Submit again.
Video Tutorials
- Click here for full length general Workday training sessions from Spring Bloom.
- Spring Bloom training session clip of Creating Expense Reports below:
What Happens Next
Approval Process
- After submission, the expense report is automatically routed for approval. It is sent to the designated manager(s) for the Worktag(s) used on the report.
- Approvers will receive a notification in their My Tasks list.
- Approvers have the option to Approve, Send Back for correction, or Deny the expense report.
- Once an expense report has been fully approved, it can no longer be changed.
Payment
Once the expense report is fully approved, any out-of-pocket expenses will be sent to Business Services for reimbursement via direct deposit. Payment will be issued during the next weekly check run.
Repaying Personal Pcard Charges
Personal charges must be repaid to Macalester within 4 weeks of the personal pcard charge date. If you forgot to check the Personal Expense box on a personal charge, notify the Pcard Administrator via email as soon as possible.
- Automatic Repayments
- Workday is not able to take personal charges out of your bank account or your paycheck.
- Personal charges will only automatically be repaid to Macalester if you submit out-of-pocket (OOP) expenses for reimbursement that are equal to or greater than the personal charge(s) amount.
- If this is the case, the personal charge amount will be deducted from your OOP reimbursement amount, and no further action will be needed from you.
- Follow the steps below to confirm your Outstanding Personal Charge Balance.
- Checking Outstanding Personal Charge Balances
- Navigate to the Expenses Hub and click the Expense Outstanding Balance tab to view your outstanding personal charge balance.
- The Outstanding Expense Balance amount is the total amount you currently owe for all unrepaid personal charges across all expense reports. If this amount is greater than $0, follow the steps below to manually repay Macalester.
- Manual Repayments
- If you have an outstanding expense balance, the amount needs to be repaid to Macalester via check or cash.
- Checks can be made out to Macalester College.
- Cash payments must be exact cash. We are unable to provide change in the Purchasing & Accounts Payable office.
- If you need change, you can get it at the Student Accounts Office during their walk-in hours.
- Place your repayment in a clearly labeled envelope: include your name, Mac ID, and ‘Personal pcard charge repayment’.
- Send via campus mail or drop off to the Purchasing & Accounts Payable office at 77 Mac, 302E.
- If dropping off in person, there is a black drop box outside the office suite door for secure drop offs in case the office is closed.
- If you have an outstanding expense balance, the amount needs to be repaid to Macalester via check or cash.
Edit, Change, or Cancel an Expense Report
If an expense report has not been submitted yet, it can be edited. Once an expense report has been submitted, it can be changed or canceled it if it has not been fully approved yet.
- Navigate to your Expenses Hub.
- Select the Expense Reports page. All of your expense reports will be listed here.
- Under the Actions column, an Actions button will appear if the expense report has not been fully approved yet.
- Cancel: Select Actions, and select Cancel Expense Report.
- A window will pop up for you to confirm cancellation. Click OK.
- Edit: To edit an unsubmitted expense report, select Actions. Select Edit Expense Report.
- The expense report will open. Make the desired edits, and submit the expense report.
- Change: To edit a submitted expense report, select Actions. Select Change Expense Report. A window will pop up for you to confirm you want to make changes, which will stop the current approval process. Click OK.
- Make the desired edits, and submit the expense report. The approval process will start over from the beginning.
- Cancel: Select Actions, and select Cancel Expense Report.
Fixing Worktags on Approved Expense Reports
Once an expense report has been submitted and fully approved, it can no longer be changed by the employee. At this point in the process, you must complete a Journal Entry to correct invalid Worktags.