Expense Claims
Q. When should an expense claim be made to ensure the payment comes in the next payroll?
A. Expenses claims should be submitted and fully authorised at least two working days before the payroll cut off day, which is normally the 14th of the month, to enable payment to be received in the next pay slip. If payday falls earlier than usual, because of bank holidays or weekends, please allow additional time accordingly. It is helpful to the staff administrating this process if expenses are not stacked up to the last minute and are submitted as early as possible.
Q. Can I still use the old paper system if I prefer?
A. No, regular claimants should use Proactis. To determine if you are a regular claimant, please contact your Faculty Finance team who will advise whether your frequency of claims warrants access. Your Faculty Finance team will also be able to grant access if necessary.
Q. How does Proactis handle advances?
A. The system currently does not handle advances. The Finance Office are reviewing the process for paying advances so no development will take place on Proactis until this review has taken place.
Q. Why is there no commitment check on expenses?
A. The expense has already been incurred and is therefore not a commitment. Where possible checks that there are funds available should be made before incurring expenses.
Q. Should overtime claims be processed through Proactis?
A. The overtime claim (grades A-I) is salary related and should not be processed through Proactis. Please continue to use existing forms.
Fee claims (grades J-M) can now be processed through Proactis using the Staff fee or Occ Fee expense template.
Q. What about any associated expense, such as mileage?
A. Expenses, whatever they relate to, should be claimed through Proactis.
Q. When is the currency conversion done when claiming expenses in a foreign currency?
A. University rate at the time of claim.
Q. Can users do the currency conversion themselves and raise the claim in GBP?
A. Yes if they use a credit card – credit card statement will show in GBP.
Q. What if expenses are in foreign currency cash and currency not in Proactis?
A. Make the claim in GPB using the appropriate exchange rate.
Q. Does each meal need to be raised as a separate line? This could be problematic in the case of a month long trip – currently 1 line is raised for meals over the period and all receipts related to that line are submitted as a batch.
A. The total for meals can be entered as one line.
Q. There are no consumables / equipment items to select for expenses. Eg. Printer consumables. (assuming the list on training matches live).
A. Use the "other" category.
Q. The items currently used – Travel UK, EU, Overseas - aren’t present on the expense claim list. Are these covered by individual items now eg. Train, Flight etc…
A. Yes use the most appropriate item or the other category where none of the listed items fits the bill.
Q. If an expense is rejected at authorisation stage it returns to the claimant, however the reason for rejection is most likely to be with coding. Can the rejection go back to the completer first?
A. This is currently not possible but has been requested. It is the completers job to check that the appropriate nominals have been entered. The completer may amend the nominals but the authoriser may not.
Q. How does an expense claimant indicate which EL2 the completer should use to code the claim?
A. Either enter the EL2 against each line. When the code is not known, please contact your Faculty team.
Q. Can those who were previously on the payroll claim expenses through Proactis?
A. Only staff who are currently on the standard payroll can claim expenses through Proactis.