An approver reviews and approves financial transactions charged to their Department ChartField(s). Approvers are assigned one or more approval levels that control the dollar amounts that they can approve.

What can an approver do?

An approver can review and approve financial transactions based on a specific assigned dollar threshold and department ChartField. These may include:

• Requisitions

• AP vouchers

• Fund assignment journals

• Cost transfer journals

• Non-PO payment requests

• Travel & expense reports / reimbursements

• Departmental purchasing card statement reports

Approvers will be notified via email and their Prime Financials worklist that pending transactions are ready for review and approval.

Who should be assigned this function?

Any user expected to approve financial transactions for an organization, group, or department.

What is the appropriate approval threshold for an approver?

Each department should determine the appropriate dollar approval threshold for their approvers.

To which systems will an approver have access?

• Prime Financials

• Concur (note that Concur approval access must be requested separately in the Concur travel and expense system)

A financial manager has overall responsibility for financial activities for an organization, group, or department.

What is the difference between a financial manager and other functions?

Financial manager is a bundled function, which means multiple business functions are automatically included when financial manager status is assigned to an individual user. Financial manager includes the following functions:

• Shopper

• Approver

• Requisition creator

• Receiver

• Journal creator

• Report viewer

• Sponsored research report viewer

•  Asset Management Workcenter user

What else can a financial manager do?

• Approve security requests for a specific organization, group, or department

• Request new ChartFields (including new programs)

Who should be assigned this function?

An academic or administrative manager, business manager, grants manager, or an individual who serves as a backup for any of these roles should be assigned the financial manager function. It is expected that this function is limited to a small number of individuals in any specific organization or group.

What can a financial manager see in an Information Warehouse Report?

What a financial manager can see is controlled by their ChartField security assignment. An academic or administrative manager for a specific organization or group, by default, will be provisioned to see all programs within a specific organization, group, or department. Generally, they should be provided all department ChartField security access as well.

Courses available for Financial Managers

Please refer to the course list for other functions to identify those courses specific to Financial Managers.

What is the appropriate approval threshold for a financial manager?

All financial managers are approvers. Each department should determine the appropriate approval threshold. Remember, approval threshold assignments directly impact how many transactions users see in their work lists in Prime Financials. A Director may choose to see only Level 4 transactions (>$25,000) and leave approval of Levels 1-3 to a manager.

To which systems does a financial manager typically have access?

• Prime Marketplace

• Prime Financials

• Concur

• Information Warehouse

A journal creator has the ability to create and view online journal entries for fund assignments, fund transfers, and cost transfers via the Prime Journal Page.

What can a journal creator do?

Journal creators can create:

• Fund Assignment Journal entries

• Fund Transfer Journal entries

• Cost Transfer / Correction Journal entries

• Standard Journal entries

Who should be assigned this function?

This function should also be assigned to anyone who does batch journal entries and / or Prime Journals. All financial managers will automatically be assigned this function.

What can a journal creator see in Prime Financials?

A journal creator can only see journal entries that they have created.

To which systems will a journal creator have access?

A journal creator will have access to Prime Financials.

An NOA recipient is the department contact who receives the Notice of Award (NOA) and has ChartField access to view award and project data through reports. One department may have multiple NOA recipients. The NOA recipient receives the NOA for all awards within their department; this role is not PI or project specific.

What can a NOA recipient do?

The NOA recipient will receive the NOA via email from ORPA. If the individual is assigned the Sponsored Research Report Viewer function, the NOA recipient will be able to view Sponsored Research Reports and will have access to:

• All projects within the contact's department

• All projects under an award, regardless of the department, when the primary project of the award is within the contact's department

Who should be assigned this business function?

Department contacts who should receive the notice of awards (NOA). One department may have multiple NOA Recipients.

The department contact that should have access to all projects within the contact's department and access all projects under an award when the primary project of the award is within the contact’s department.

To which systems will the NOA recipient have access?

• Prime Financials
• Prime Financials Information Warehouse

A receiver can receive for Purchase Orders, including those created by other users in their department. This function should be assigned to loading dock personnel and other central receiving staff.

To which systems will a receiver have access?

A Receiver will have access to Prime Financials.

A report viewer has the ability to run and view financial and procurement reports in the Information Warehouse.

Who should be assigned this function?

Any individual who runs reports for themselves or others in the department should be assigned the report viewer function. If a person typically runs reports for sponsored research transactions (Grants), they should also be assigned the sponsored research report viewer business function.

What can a report viewer see in an Information Warehouse report?

What a report viewer can see is controlled by their ChartField security assignment. A report viewer can be assigned specific department(s), project(s) and / or program(s).

To which systems will a report viewer have access?

A Report Viewer has access to the Information Warehouse.

A requisition creator reviews shopping carts created by Shoppers and can create requisitions and non-PO payment requests. This business function can view assigned shopping cart contents and bring carts into a requisition, complete an order on behalf of a shopper, and create non-PO payment requests in Prime Financials. Requisition creators also have access to the Asset Management WorkCenter, where they can view / maintain capital equipment records.

A person assigned this business function must ensure proper accounting information is assigned in the requisition. Activities within this function include creating and maintaining requisitions, entering ChartFields, creating receipts, inquiring in Prime Financials on purchasing and accounts payable transactions and creating supplier add requests. Requisition creators do not automatically have approval levels assigned. Requisition approvals may be done by other members of the department that have approval levels assigned.

What can a Requisition Creator do?

A Requisition creator can:

• Review and add information to carts created by shoppers
• Pull carts into Prime Financials to create requisitions
• Add ChartField information to purchase requests, for example specify the fund
• Shop supplier catalogs 
• Create special request for goods and services
• Shop non-catalog contract items
• Inquire on purchasing and accounts payable transactions
• Acknowledge receipt of goods
• Access detailed requisition, approval, order history, matching, and related invoices

Who should be assigned this function?

Individuals with departmental purchasing responsibilities should be assigned this role. Financial Managers in your department typically hold the Requisition Creator functionality, as it is assigned as part of the Financial Manager business function.

What is the difference between a shopper and requisition creator?

Shoppers only access the Prime Marketplace and can add items to a shopping cart. They are not expected to assign ChartFields for the purchase or create requisitions.

A Requisition creator takes the shopper’s cart from the Prime Marketplace and builds the requisition. The requisition creator must understand which chartstring (department, fund, account program, project) applies to the purchase request.

While all faculty and staff are shoppers, a smaller number are requisition creators.

To which systems will a requisition creator have access?

A Requisition Creator will have access to:

• Prime Marketplace

• Prime Financials (Purchasing and Accounts Payable modules)

A shopper is an individual with access to the Prime Marketplace, where they can create shopping carts for the purchase of goods or services.

What can a shopper do?

A Shopper is able to add items to a cart, and assign it to a requisition creator. A shopper does not need to assign a chartstring to be charged for the purchase. This task will be done by the requisition creator who “pulls the cart” into a requisition.

Shoppers can provide comments, including any known funding instructions in the cart comments, when assigning the cart to the requisition creator.

Who should be assigned this function?

All faculty, staff, and students are Marketplace shoppers by default.

What is the difference between a shopper and requisition creator?

Shoppers can only access the Prime Marketplace and add items to their shopping cart. They are not expected to assign ChartFields for the purchase.

A requisition creator pulls the shopper’s cart from the Prime Marketplace and builds the requisition. The requisition creator must assign the relevant ChartFields (department, fund, account program, project) to the purchase.

While all faculty and staff are shoppers, a small number of staff are requisition creators.

To which systems will a shopper have access?

Shoppers will have access to the Prime Marketplace and may also have access to other modules in Prime Financials.

A sponsored research report viewer has the ability to run and view sponsored research financial and procurement reports in the Information Warehouse.

What can a sponsored research report viewer do?

A sponsored research report viewer can run reports in the Information Warehouse which detail transactions charged to Sponsored Projects.

Who should be assigned this business function?

Any individual who runs sponsored research reports for themselves or others in their department should be assigned the sponsored research report viewer function. All PIs should also be assigned this function.

To which systems will a sponsored research report viewer have access?

Sponsored research report viewers will typically have access to the Prime Grants module and the Information Warehouse Sponsored Research reports.

Approval routing is controlled by the Department ChartField tied to the transaction. Approvers have the ability to approve multiple types of financial transactions. They will see all financial transactions requiring departmental approval for their department, based on the Approval Level(s) they are assigned.

The standard Level 1 – Level 4 approval thresholds apply across all transactions. 

An Ad Hoc approver or reviewer may be added to a transaction during the approval process.  An Ad Hoc approver does not replace the Departmental Financial approver, but creates an additional approver/reviewer.  When adding an Ad Hoc approver be aware that the transaction will not move forward until the Ad Hoc approver takes action.

Financial Transactions Requiring Departmental Approval

• Requisitions

• Online Correction & Cost Transfer Journals

• Fund Assignment Journals

• (Non-PO) payment requests

• Travel & Expense Reports

• Departmental Purchasing Card (pCard) Substantiation

Online worklists are used to manage the queue of transactional tasks for Approvers in Prime Financials. Any financial transaction requiring departmental approval will appear in an approver’s worklist. The approver will see any financial transaction within their Approval Level threshold(s) that are charged to the Department ChartField(s) that they can approve for.

There are standard approval levels for financial transactions.

An approver for a particular Department ChartField will see transactions in their worklist only within the Levels(s) to which they are assigned. For example, if you have Level 4 approval authority, you will not see Level 1-3 transactions in your worklist. An approver can be assigned multiple thresholds if necessary. Note that for smaller departments, who may have only one Level 4 approver, a $25,000 or greater transaction should be entered in the system by a subordinate so that it will route to the Level 4 approver for their approval. (Remember that a Level 4 approver can not both originate and approve a Level 4 transaction.)

Workflow routing is based upon the total amount and the Department ChartField of the transaction.

• Threshold levels 1 through 3 allow self approval. (For example, if the initiator is also an approver, the transaction does not require approval by another approver.
• Level 4 transactions cannot be approved by the initiator of the transaction even if they are a Level 4 approver. They must route to a second Level 4 approver to be approved or be originated by a subordinate.

If multiple departments are impacted (for example a purchase whose cost is distributed among several departments), all departments being charged for the goods or are affected  by a journal must approve the transaction  before the goods are purchased or the journal is booked.