Step 10: Set up forms

Follow these directions to create forms, which are the screens that the users see in e-xpense. You can create as many forms as your company needs.

Basically, you create a form by giving it a name and telling e-xpense what categories you want on the form. You also make settings for per diem validations, unallowable charging, approval information, and so on. To create forms, you must have created all the categories that you need.

To create a form

1. From the JAMIS Administration home page > Setup tab, under Expense Setup, click e-xpense forms. Or, from the top of any JAMIS Administration screen, click Expense Setup > e-xpense Forms. The e-xpense Forms screen appears.

2. Click Add. e-xpense form entry fields appear.

3. Enter a form name of up to five characters in the e-xpense Form field. If the new form is going to be similar to an existing one, then you can save time by copying the existing form.

4. Enter a form Description of up to 30 characters.

5. Select an option from the Form Type dropdown list to indicate the kind of expense for which employees use this form.

• Travel

• Material

• General

• Not Used

6. If you want to require the employee to submit a pre-authorization request before incurring the expense, check the Pre-Authorization Required box. If you don't check this box, then any of the fields in the steps below that are specific to pre-authorization requests are not available for entry.

7. Check the Allow Cash Advance box to let an employee enter an advance payment amount on pre-authorization requests.

8. Check the Job Required for Requests box to require employees to enter a job number in order to save a pre-authorization request. The default for this field is turned off, meaning that employees can enter a job number, but it is not required.
   
   Note: The job number that the employee enters on the request is the prime job that s/he will use on the expense report. It is not the job number for advance payments, which you enter when you initialize e-xpense.

9. If you want the system to generate a request number for each request, check the Generate Request Numbers box. If you don't check this box, then employees will have to manually enter a request number in order to save.
   
   The Next Request Number field shows the number 1. You can click Edit to the right of the number to change it, if you wish. It must be a numeric value of eight digits or less.

10. If you wish, select one of the 10 classes from the User-Defined Class for Requests dropdown list. For user-defined fields to appear on this form’s pre-authorization requests, you must set up at least one user-defined field for the class that you select here.
    
    By default, a form’s requests do not display user-defined fields. You must select a class in order for employees to make entries to user-defined fields on requests. The ability to define up to ten class groupings of user-defined fields for requests gives you flexibility in setting up different forms with different user-defined fields on each form’s requests.

11. If you want the system to generate a report number for each report, check the Generate Report Numbers box. If you don’t check this box, then employees will have to manually enter a report number in order to save.
    
    The Next Report Number field shows the number 1. You can click Edit to the right of the number to change it, if you wish. It must be a numeric value of eight digits or less.

12. If you set the Form Type field to Travel, then you can check the Allow Multiple Reports box to let employees enter multiple expense reports for one trip. You can use this feature both for forms that require pre-authorization, and for forms without pre-authorization. When pre-authorization is required, employees will be able to indicate in each request whether they want to enter multiple reports. Read more about multiple expense reports.

13. You can customize the Report Number Label field to your company terminology. For example, Consulting, Trip Number, or Seminar Report.

14. You can customize the Description Label field to your company terminology, or accept the default of Description.

15. You can customize the Detailed Description Label field to your company terminology, or accept the default of Detailed Description.
    
    The form must have the Form Type field set to anything except Material in order for you to make the settings described in the following three steps.

16. Select one of the following options from the Enforce Per Diem Lodging dropdown list.

• Don’t default per diem

• Default per diem, move overcharge to unallowable amount

• Default per diem, employee can’t overcharge

• Don't default per diem, move overcharge to unallowable amount

17. Select one of the following options from the Enforce Per Diem M&IE dropdown list.

• Don’t default per diem

• Default per diem, move overcharge to unallowable amount

• Default per diem, employee can’t overcharge

• Don't default per diem, move overcharge to unallowable amount

e-xpense uses your settings for these fields to determine whether it validates employees' entries against the per diem rates that you define in e-xpense, not the rates that employees can pull from a web site. Read details about the impacts of enforcing per diems.

18. If you select one of the two default per diem options for Enforce Per Diem M&IE, then you can use the Percent of Maximum Per Diem for First and Last Day field to indicate the maximum percentage of the M&IE/breakfast/lunch/dinner/incidentals per diem rates that employees charge to on either the first or last day on the request or report. Defaults to 100. Read about the impacts of setting a maximum percentage of the M&IE per diem rate.

19. If you wish to limit the difference between the cost estimate in the request and the actual cost in the report, you can do so in one of two ways described below. If the employee's report total exceeds the allowed variance, then an error message appears when s/he submits, and s/he is prompted to enter an explanation for the variance.

• To limit the difference to a percentage of the initial cost estimate, enter a percentage in the Variance Percentage field.

• To limit the difference to a monetary variance from the initial cost estimate, enter a dollar amount in the Variance Amount field.

20. For the Distribute Expenses to field, select one of the following options to indicate whether employees split their expenses between different job numbers, org9s, or both.

• Job

• Org9

• Both Job and Org9

21. If you select either Org9 or Both Job and Org9 for Distribute Expenses to, then you can select from the dropdown list an existing Job Assignment Number (also known as job assignment title or sequence number). When an employee distributes expenses to an org9, e-xpense uses the combination of the job assignment code in the org9 and the job assignment number that you enter here in order to look for the job number for the distribution. Find out how to set up job assignment numbers.
    
    Note: The Job Assignment Number field is required if either of the following are true.

• When you set the Distribute Expenses to field to Org9, and set the System to Integrate field in the e-timecard Initialization file to JAMIS.

• When you set the Distribute Expenses to field to Both Job and Org9.

22. Select one of the following options from the Validate Job Number (user-defined label) field to indicate whether e-xpense validates the jobs that employees enter on pre-authorization requests and expense report distributions.

• Hard Error: The employee must change the invalid job to a valid one before s/he can save the request or expense distribution.

• No Validation: e-xpense does no error checking for the job. The employee can save an invalid job to a request or to an expense distribution.

23. Check one or both of the following boxes to indicate which users e-xpense emails under the circumstances described below.

• Notify Employee to send an email to the employee when a request or report is rejected, fully approved, changed by an approver, and created or changed by a group expense keeper. e-xpense sends an email regardless of whether the employee created the request or report him/herself, or if a group expense keeper created it for him/her.

• Notify Creator of Rejects to send an email to the user who finished creating the request or report that receives a rejection. This user can be either the employee him/herself or the group expense keeper.

24. By default, employees and group expense keepers can make changes to a submitted expense report as long as it is not fully approved. If you want to prevent users from changing reports based on this form after they submit them, check the Cannot Change Report After Submit box. Note that you indicate whether approvers can change submitted reports in the Approver Modifications field under the Report Approvals tab.

25. The Exclude from ASCII Export check box defaults to turned off. Turn on this check box if you want to always exclude reports based on this form from ASCII exports, even if you select to export all forms.

Fill out fields in the Approval/Submittal area

26. Enter a number between 1 and 9 for the Level of Approvals for Pre-Authorization Request field to determine the number of approval levels for a pre-authorization request’s approval hierarchy.

27. Enter a number between 1 and 9 for the Level of Approvals for Expense Report field to determine the number of approval levels for an expense report’s approval hierarchy. You do not have to enter the same number that you did for pre-authorization requests.
    
    Hint: If you do not want to set up a multi-level approval hierarchy for either pre-authorization requests or expense reports, simply enter 1.

28. If you want employees to enter their password when submitting their pre-authorization request, check the Reenter Password for Pre-Authorization Request Submittal box.

29. If you want employees to enter their password when submitting their expense report, check the Reenter Password for Expense Report Submittal box.

30. If you want the approver to enter a password when approving or rejecting a pre-authorization request, check the Reenter Password for Pre-Authorization Request Approval box.

31. If you want the approver to enter a password when approving or rejecting an expense report, check the Reenter Password for Expense Report Approval box.

32. Check the Allow Forwarding Approval box if you want to allow approvers to forward the pre-authorization request or expense report to an additional approver.

Enter unallowable information

33. Click the Unallowable Expense Setup tab to determine how the company pays any costs that exceed the approved per diem rates.

34. Select one of the following options for the Unallowable Distribution Job (user-defined label) field.

• Unallowable Job in Expense Report: e-xpense distributes unallowable costs to the unallowable job number for the expense report, which you will enter a default for in step 32 below. When you select this option and you set up a category to be automatically unallowable, the buttons for distributing expenses for that category and for any of its cells are not available on the expense report.

• Allowable Expense Job: e-xpense distributes unallowable costs to the same jobs that the employee enters for allowable expenses. When you select this option, the Unallowable Job field does not appear on the expense report.

35. If you selected Unallowable Job in Expense Report for the Unallowable Distribution Job field, then you can check the Unallowable Job is Changeable (user-defined label) box if you want employees to be able to change the unallowable job that defaults from your entry in step 32 below.

36. Select one of the following options for the Unallowable Distribution Cost Element (user-defined label) field.

• Unallowable Cost Element in Expense Report: e-xpense distributes unallowable costs to the unallowable cost element for the expense report, which you will enter a default for in step 33 below.

• Unallowable Cost Element in Expense Category: e-xpense distributes unallowable costs to the unallowable cost element for the expense category. If you select this option, note the following impacts. If there is no unallowable cost element in a particular expense category, then the Unallowable Cost Element field on the expense report is required. If, however, all of an expense form’s categories contain an unallowable cost element, then the Unallowable Cost Element field does not appear on the expense report.

37. Check the Unallowable Cost Element is Changeable (user-defined label) box if you want employees to be able to change the unallowable cost element that defaults from your entry in step 33 below.

38. If you selected Unallowable Job in Expense Report for the Unallowable Distribution Job field, then you can enter a job number for charging unallowable amounts. You can look it up by clicking to the right of the field.

39. Enter a cost element for charging unallowable amounts. You can look it up by clicking to the right of the field.

40. If you selected Unallowable Job in Expense Report for the Unallowable Distribution Job field, then you can select an existing job assignment number instead of entering a job number and cost element for charging unallowable amounts.
    
    When an employee enters unallowable costs, e-xpense uses the combination of the job assignment code in the employee’s master record (or in his/her home org9 if it is blank in the employee master) and the job assignment number that you select here to look for the job number and/or cost element to charge the unallowable amount to.
    
    Note: Be aware of the following. If you set Unallowable Distribution Job to Unallowable Job in Expense Report and do not check the Is Unallowable Job is Changeable box, then either the Job Number or the Job Assignment Number field is required. If you set Unallowable Distribution Cost Element to Unallowable Cost Element in Expense Report and do not check the Unallowable Cost Element is Changeable box, then either the Cost Element or the Job Assignment Number field is required.

Select e-xpense categories

41. Click the Categories Setup tab to assign categories to the form.

42. Select any category in the Available Categories list, then click Add to the right of the list. The category moves into the Selected Categories list. You can assign as many categories as you wish. To remove a category, click Remove to the left of the category in the Selected Categories list.
    
    Note: You cannot refer to the same per diem rate more than once on the same form.

43. For each amount category that you assign to the form, you can set a range of valid amounts as well as the error type. If you set range values and error type on the e-xpense Categories screen, they default into the form, and you can override these settings here if you wish.

Fill out fields under the Report Approvals and Request Approval tabs

44. Click the Report Approvals tab or Request Approvals tab. If you are setting up multiple approval levels, then the screen displays the first level.
    
    The Request Approvals tab is for pre-authorization requests, which employees fill out to get permission for incurring an expense. The Report Approvals tab is for expense reports, which employees fill out to report on a completed expense. If the form requires pre-authorization (meaning that you checked the Pre-Authorization Required box), fill out both tabs according to steps 39 through 44 below. If the form does not require pre-authorization, then the Request Approvals tab does not appear.

45. Enter a number between 1 and 6 for the minimum number of signatures required to approve requests or reports. The number that you enter must match the required/optional settings for different approvers that you will make in the steps below. In other words, the number must be:

• no greater than the number of required approvers + (the number of optional approvers -1), and

• no less than the number of required approvers +1 if you select optional approvers, or no less than the number of required approvers if you do not select any optional approvers

46. For each of the following approvers, indicate whether a signature is required or optional , whether the approver has view-only access to requests or reports, or whether the approver has no access to requests or reports.

• Employee’s e-xpense Approver

• Employee’s e-xpense Manager

• Employee’s Home Org9 Manager (user-defined label)

• Job Manager (applies to pre-authorization requests only)

47. Follow the sub-steps below for up to three additional approvers/auditors or approver/auditor groups. If you do not want to set up additional approvers/auditors, simply leave each Employee/Group field set to the default of None.

1. For the Employee/Group field, indicate whether a signature is required or optional, whether the approver has view-only access to requests or reports, or whether the approver has no access to requests or reports.

2. For the Use Employee ID or Group ID field, indicate whether you want to designate a single employee as the approver/auditor, or whether you want to assign an approver/auditor group.

3. In the Employee ID/Group ID field, enter either an employee ID or a group ID, depending on your selection in sub-step b. You can look up either employees or group IDs by clicking to the right of the field.
   
   Hint: If you are entering an employee, make sure that you check the employee’s Approver for e-xpense field or Auditor for e-xpense  field on the Employee Details screen, e-xpense Data tab.

48. For the Approver Modifications dropdown list, select from the following options.

• Cannot Make Changes: Prevents the approver from making any changes to the submitted request or report.

• Cannot Make Changes after Current Level is Approved: Available for reports only, not requests. This option prohibits the approver from changing a report if it is already fully approved at his/her approval level, and it prevents previous-level approvers from changing a report that is fully approved at the level you are setting up. Read an example of how this option works.

• Can Change Only Jobs: Allows the approver to change the job number for billing.

• No Restrictions: Allows the approver to make any changes to the submitted request or report.

49. For expense reports only, check the Review of Distribution Summary Required box if you want to require approvers to review this information before approving.

50. If you are setting up multiple approval levels, scroll down to go to the next approval level, then repeat steps 39 through 43 for each approval level. You must set up all approval levels before you can save the form.

51. Click Save to commit your e-xpense form entries under all tabs.

See also

Assigning approvers

Copying forms

Changing forms

Deleting forms