Approval Workflow

Approval authority for supplemental payments to RIT employees is comprised of approval routing and approval limit amounts (ALA). Pre-defined business rules have been established that will automatically route the transaction to the required approver(s). Supplemental payments include Adjunct, Additional Compensation, Overload, Special Assignment and Summer Salary.

Routing of the transaction will follow a workflow process that is based on the General Ledger (G/L) department number as entered in the payment and the HR supervisor hierarchy. The approval routing starts with the employee that has been previously designated on the G/L department as the first approver. Each G/L department number that will be used to charge the payment must have an employee listed as the first approver. The person designated as the HR first approver should be someone with knowledge of the budget, finances and workload associated with the payment.  Generally the person designated is the college partner for the college, a financial or operational manager, a department chair or a budget head.

Special rules have been added for the following:

• Allow for a separate person from the first approver to act as a reviewer for transactions, the designation of a reviewer is optional.
• Payments charged to grants or contracts will be routed to the Principal Investigator (PI) as an approver and the Sponsored Programs Accounting (SPA) rep will be the final approver.
• The HR Business Partner (HRBP) will be the final approver for any Special Assignment or Additional Compensation Pay transaction of $1000 or greater.
• Payments to employees that are also within the approval chain will automatically route to their supervisor for approval.

The approval limit amounts (ALA) are established and delegated according to the RIT Signatory Authority policy. A supervisor may delegate all or part of their authority. An ALA is delegated from a supervisor to a subordinate using Oracle self-serve. The transaction amount is validated within the workflow process against the ALA of each approver in the approval hierarchy until the last ALA is sufficient to approve the transaction.

Once all approvals have been received, the payment is applied to the payee’s record in the Payroll system.

1. Reviewer - Optional

A reviewer can be assigned to each G/L department number. This will be the first person to see the transaction after it has been submitted unless they are the creator of the transaction. They have no ALA in regards to a transaction for which they are a reviewer but have the ability to return it for correction, approve it to move it forward in the workflow, or reject it entirely.

2. PI – if payment is for grant or contract

When a transaction is charged to a grant or contract (an account code is used with a project number starting with a 3 or an alpha character), the transaction will go to the PI assigned on the G/L department. The PI may also be designated as the first approver. The PI may return for correction, approve or reject the transaction.

3. First approver as assigned to G/L dept. (required)

Each G/L department used for supplemental payments will be assigned an employee that will be designated as the first approver for the transaction. This employee is used as the starting point of the approval workflow to determine the supervisory hierarchy.

4. Supervisor of first approver – if ALA is not sufficient

The transaction will route to the supervisor of the first approver when the first approver does not have an ALA sufficient to approve the transaction. The transaction will then continue up that supervisory hierarchy until it has been approved by someone with an ALA sufficient to approve the transaction. If the supervisor does not have an ALA, the transaction will route to the next supervisor in the hierarchy.

5. SPA rep if payment is on a grant or contract

The SPA rep will be inserted as an approver for any payment that is charged to a grant or contract after the employee with a sufficient ALA has approved the transaction.

6. HRSM for Special Assignment or Add Pay transactions of $1000 or greater

The HR Services Manager (HRSM) will be the final approver for any Special Assignment or Add Pay transactions of $1000 or greater.