From September 2018 QMUL staff in schools/institutes and departments will be able to claim expenses electronically online via the Finance System (Unit 4/Agresso). This functionality is being rolled out across all of QMUL through autumn 2018, with all areas live by the end December 2018. The Finance team will be liaising with School and Institute Managers to advise when departments will be live.
By default current staff who have made an expense claim in the last 2 years will be set up in the Agresso Finance System and individuals will use their existing Agresso login details to access the "Time and Expenses" menu item of if they are first-time Agresso users, login details will be sent during the go-live process.
Staff who have not made a claim in the last 2 years will need to request system access by contacting the Financial Systems Team via servicedesk@qmul.ac.uk
Expense claims must be made in line with all University Policies, note in particular the Travel and Expenses, Hospitality and Gift Policy and the Procurement Policy.
Payment will be made to the bank account that the individual's salary is paid to. Any changes to bank details should be actioned by the claimant via MyHR.
Please ensure your claim is in compliance with the Expenses policy which is published on the ARC policy zone.Expense claims are entered via Agresso-web. To facilitate this Unit 4 has a mobile app – which will facilitate entering basic information as well as an image of a receipt, but the claimant will need to log into Agresso-web to complete the claim.
The mobile app can be used to build up a claim collating expense items as and when they are incurred with the claim completed via Agresso-web.
Step 1 Download the mobile expenses app:
Download the Unit4 Expenses app from the Apple (Iphone) or Google (Android) store.
Use the following URL to connect to AP online expenses:
https://app-agresso-web.qmul.ac.uk/BusinessWorld-webservices/
Step 2 Entering expenses via the app:
Step 3
Having completed steps 2-3 or just 3 if not using the mobile app, the claim will be workflowed in Agresso finance systems to be "verified" within the department before being approved in accordance with the school/department cost centre approval hierarchy.
Step 4
Step 5
For the purposes of online expenses these terms are used as follows:
Claimant refers to the individual who has incurred the business expenditure; is personally out-of-pocket and seeking reimbursement
Verifier refers to the member of staff within the school/department/institute to who the submitted expense claim will workflow to in the system and who is responsible for checking that the expense claim is for valid business expenditure; within the Travel and Expenses policy; is correctly coded; sufficiently described in the text and the image of the receipt has been attached
Approver receives the claim after the verifier and provides budget holder approval for the spend
Proxy in some limited circumstances it is possible to arrange for someone to complete the expense claim on your behalf. Having entered the expense lines the submitted claim will workflow to the claimant to accept completeness and accuracy of the amounts claimed, before workflowing to the verifier.
You should keep the original receipts until any queries about your claim have been resolved and your claim has been approved and paid. The full VAT receipt image should be attached in the system to the claim for each item of spend.
However where the spend is coded to a research project then individuals submitting claims will need to ensure that they retain the receipts in accordance with the funder requirements.
Please note – if you use the expenses app to take a photo then the images will not be stored in your device photo gallery. If you need to ensure that you have a copy of the receipt image then it is advisable to take a photo with your device and to add this as an “image” or as a “document” to the claim.
My receipt is in currency but I need to complete the claim in sterling what do I do?
Expenses are claimed in GBP, so any currency receipts should be translated to sterling and the sterling amount entered. There are options as to how to do this:
You may need to provide a copy of the redacted statement showing the full cost of the item if the rates are significantly different to the expected rate.
In each case the narrative should contain the currency; currency amount and exchange rate used.
How do I include the names and institutions of attendees for business entertaining claims?
You should provide the names and the institution/business for any attendees that are being paid for under business entertaining. There is no room within the input fields to do this, so the simplest way to provide this is to write the details on a piece of paper and capture the image of the receipt with the names:
1) Name of attendee, Institution X2) Name of attendee, Business Y 3) Name of attendee, QMUL 4) Etc.
Whilst we need supporting information for the reimbursement of expenses please take care with any information contained within receipts and be aware that this is saved in the finance system. Ensure that any credit card numbers are not visible in full (they shouldn’t be issued with the full card number visible), but if there is too much showing please redact the information before storing the image.
If you are providing additional support such as bank/credit card statements please ensure all other transactions and card information is redacted.
QMUL will not currently be recovering any expense claim VAT incurred, consequently the VAT codes in the system are a set value.
Before using you own car for business purposes please ensure that you are insured to do so. If you do not have insurance which includes business use then you will not be insured if there is an incident so should not be using your vehicle. When claiming business mileage please add your insurance document to the claim.
When you have completed your claim and are ready to submit it you change the status from “draft” to “ready” and save the claim. A transaction number will show – this is the reference for your claim which will be quoted throughout the process and be shown on the remittance you are emailed when the claim has been sent to the bank to be paid.
After submitting your claim an email alert is sent to the school/department/institute Verifier and the claim will workflow within the system creating a task for the verifier. The verifier will check the claim to ensure the receipt is attached; correctly coded and the amounts/items claimed is within policy.
Once verified the claim workflows as a task to the budget holder for the cost centre approves the claim before it workflows to the Expenses Officer in Accounts Payable for final review and posting.
Once posted the claim is fully approved and waiting for the next payment run where it will be picked up and paid to the bank account that is held in myHR.
Having been approved and posted by the Expenses Officer in Accounts Payable the claim will be picked up on the next payment run.
The payment runs are created each week, usually on Thursday, and once authorised are submitted to the bank usually on Friday or Monday. The bank takes 3 business days to process the file, so funds should arrive by Weds the following week.
When Accounts Payable send the file to the bank and updates the finance system a remittance advice is generated which is emailed to the claimant. This remittance advice indicates that the funds are in the process of being paid and lists the expense claims and the amounts being sent.
If funds are not received within 3 days of the remittance please contact the Expenses helpdesk at expenses@qmul.ac.uk
Once you submit a claim it will be reviewed to ensure: that the receipt image/document/supporting information is attached; that the cost centre is correct and the expense type correctly selected; amounts are within policy and that adequate narrative has been provided. If any of these are not correct or require amending the claim will be rejected within the system and will become a task for you to review. You will receive an email advising.
No, the mobile app can be used anywhere – we recommend you change the settings to use wi-fi rather than data allowances. If you are off-line then there will be an error message in the app, but if you resave the item once on line this should join the sync queue and synchronise to Agresso.
Agresso web is also accessible off-site, so can be used when you are away from QMUL.
Instead of deleting the claim – replace the data and save as a new claim.
Yes – if you use print preview this will provide a summary of your claim. This can be retained for future reference, but please be aware that your bank details are visible on this document, so if printed it is suggested that these are redacted.
If you have a query about using the on-line expenses system or the use of Agresso then please raise a helpdesk ticket for the Financial Systems Team in IT servicedesk@qmul.ac.uk
If your query is related to the expense claim then please contact the expenses team at expenses@qmul.ac.uk
Open the claim, on the top right hand corner of the screen click on the paperclip Capture Doc1 [DOC 39KB]
Click Add a document and under Document type, click on Expenses Claims Capture Doc [DOC 60KB] upload and Save.
In the right hand corner (see Capture [DOC 30KB]) you will see a tick with a number. This indicates that there is a task waiting to be actioned. Click on this and it will open the claim allowing for changes to be made. You will be able to read about why your claim was rejected.To make any changes, ensure that the status is changed from Ready to Draft. Once amendments are made, change status back to Ready and Save.