Frequently Asked Questions

We recommend using Google Chrome when processing an Expense Report (ER) in Workday as it has reported the least amount of issues. 

Alternative web browsers do work but we have come across some minor bugs in them. Mozilla Firefox we have come across the most issues with over the years. 

We also recommend making sure that your Google Chrome is up to date and is set to automatically stay up to date. The Workday developers match the system with more current versions of web browsers so it's generally best to let your web browsers stay up to date. Here are some screenshots that walk through how to check on this for Google Chrome: 

All UW employee are able to create Expense Reports for themselves. For creating ERs on behalf of others, the Expense Data Entry Specialist Security Role must be assigned to the user. 

The initiator and individuals on the approval flow (Shared Environment Expense Specialist, Funding Manager) receive email notifications indicating the ER status unless each changes their own email notification preferences.
 

After submitting an expense report, a questionnaire will appear to fill out regarding personal time. Under "Did you take any personal days or trips while traveling for business?", Select "Yes". In the box below, please provide dates, times, and location of personal travel. Airfare costs for destination other than the UW business location is not reimbursable and must be deducted from the total airfare cost. Learn more about responsibilities during personal time.
 

Click on the County Info link to identify if the city is in a high cost county for domestic locations. Learn more.  Select Other when the location is not listed for Foreign and Non-Contiguous areas. Learn more.

Receipts must be attached to ER for all expenses $75 or over and all receipts regardless of costs for airfare, lodging,rail, car rental, laundry, and meals paid on the behalf for others are required.

* Ensure you check with your department/medical center administrators on which receipts they require.

The Expense Report and Misc Payment Modules do not have the functionality to split cost centers. An accounting journal must be made to split and/or transfer expenses.

PCA codes will be changed into Worktags in Workday. Please input these Worktags into the "Additional Worktags" in the header or individually per line item.

Travel expenses paid by CTA and Procard will be recorded through a Procard Verification (Task: Verify Procurement Card Transactions) OR a separate expense report (Business Purpose: CTA Verification). They cannot be combined into an ER for Business Travel Reimbursement.

UW employees are no longer required to approve their expense reports and are not part of the approval flow process in Workday.

As of January 1, 2018, due to changes in the tax code, all moving and travel expenses regarding relocation has been moved to Workday through the Moving Expenses "Request One-Time Payment" Module. 

For UW Employees, input the total amount for all participants (including themselves) into the Lodging Per Diem item. If there is an overage, input the overage amount under the Daily Expenses in the Lodging Per Diem - Overage item and write into the memo field, "Claimant - # of travelers". Please enter the other travelers' names, purpose of trip, home address (city and state), and duty station (city and state) in the ER comment section.

Meals paid for others are separate from this and are reimbursed at actual costs as evidenced by receipts and cannot exceed the allowable meal per diem rate per person according to the location of travel.

For Non-employees, in the Miscellaneous Payment module, the initiator will choose Claimant in the Payee field.

If the ER is submitted and completely approved prior to 6:00pm, the check is issued the following day.

Select Wire from the Payment Type options. Include applicable information and attach to the ER in Workday with applicable receipts.

To review transactions in Workday Expense a UWNetid and password are required as well as a Workday profile. We have taken additional security measures to protect what may be considered sensitive information by limiting access to documentation: Attachments (receipts) and comments in the system will only be visible to those authorized on the ER business process: expense data entry specialist (if applicable), approvers, procurement analysts, and you the traveler of course.

Only use Workday Expense if you are reimbursing the traveler. Please be sure to provide proof of payment and commercial lodging facility. If reimbursing property management company contact Real Estate Office.

You may authorize the user to have enhanced accessibility. This role provides two links on the top left corner that help navigation and a scroll on lists rather than pages.

Log onto Astra

Choose Ariba Admin

Select enhanced accessibility under role

Click ok proceed to cart

The status of your expense report is right at your fingertips

This information is accessible for users by accessing their Expenses App in Workday:

From there, click on Expense Reports from the View menu:

Users can view all approved expense reports and then see what the status is.

Payment type will default to your default in Workday HCM.

See the Scanning Policy set forth by UW Records Management for more information 

See the Scanning Policy set forth by UW Records Management for more information.

Please note this is currently a Work In Progress. Travel Services is working with the FT Design Team to complete this procedure. 

Per Diem no longer in Workday? 

• Using the ‘'Per Diem - Custom' line item, you will manually calculate the per diem and input into the total amount field. 
• Please note the location and dates in the appropriate fields. 
• Documentation of the old per diem must be attached to the expense report as a PDF:
  • Domestic (contiguous states) can be found at: https://www.gsa.gov/travel/plan-book/per-diem-rates
  • Foreign (including non-contiguous states) can be found at: https://www.defensetravel.dod.mil/site/perdiemCalc.cfm
• Add a comment indicating this procedure was followed due to the per diems no longer being listed in the Workday system.
• For any questions please email the Travel Office: travel@uw.edu

Here are two methods to show how to input different daily rates:

Example: Traveler A went to San Diego from 7/3-7/5 and had two different nightly rates.

• Nightly Rate: 7/3 - $150, 7/4 - $100
• Daily Tax: $25
• Total: $300

1. Itemization > Daily Expenses > Edit

You can change the number of nights to 1 and input the amount into the "Daily Rate". To add the other nights, click on "Add".

2. Additional Lodging Per Diem expense items (click photo to enlarge)

A Travel/Cash Advance (previously Per Diem Advances) are requested through the Spend Authorization task and Expense Report module. Reconciliation of a Travel/Cash Advance is completed through the Expense Report module. Learn more.

Living Allowance: A department may issue a Living Allowance to defray costs that a non-UW Foreign National may incur while in Seattle for UW Business. Living Allowances will be submitted through the Miscellaneous Payment module. 

Restrictions:  

•limited to the GSA meal per diem rate for actual dates of stay in Seattle

•payment will not be released until all required foreign national documentation is attached to the expense report

•may not be used to defray expenses for others

Time Limitations:

•allowance may not exceed 30 days at a time

•WT/B2 visa types limited to 9 days reimbursement every 6 months

Learn more.
 

It depends.  The Fly America Act mandates the use of U.S. certificated air carriers for federally funded international travel.  Learn more.

• Effective January 1st, 2018
• To ensure expenses are properly accounted for, documentation must comply with the IRS Accountable Plan
• If itemized receipts are obtainable and compliant with IRS Accountable Plan, reimburse expenses as usual on their appropriate line items
• If receipts are not itemized and not compliant with the IRS Accountable Plan, use the 'Package Deal' line item in Ariba and follow the built in tax instruction
• For UW employees, email pr-tax@uw.edu with employee name, employee ID #, payment description and package deal amount. Please attach proof to the expense report. 
  • The traveler will be taxed through payroll as income based the amount of the non-compliant package deal total:
    • 2018 withholding: 
      • Federal Income Tax = 22%
      • Social Security Tax = 6.2%
      • Medicare Tax = 1.45%
• For non-UW Individuals, due to tax reporting requirements, non-UW employees are to be paid honoraria through the Miscellaneous Payments process

**All resources should be exhausted to acquire IRS Accountable Plan compliant receipts. The package deal line item should be used as a last resort when those resources have been exhausted.

Contact Accounts Payable (checks) at checks@uw.edu and provide the check # of the check you wish to cancel. The check # can be obtained by checking my FD.

To reissue the payment, a new ER will need to be processed after confirming the live check has been cancelled.

Please make a comment on the old ER stating the check number and confirmation that it has been cancelled. After confirming cancellation, on the new ER, please make a comment stating that it is replacing the previous ER.

To speed up the process, you can use the ‘copy’ function in Ariba. Note that all attachments will need to be reattached and all comments will need to be re-added. Here are the instructions:

1.            Locate the previous Expense Report by searching for it

2.            Select the Expense Report by marking the check-box to the left of it (do not actually open the report)

3.            Click on the 'copy' button, which will be right below

4.            Click the travel tab at the top of Ariba, the copy report will be in the 'My Documents' section of your dashboard

5.            Please attach all of the required receipts/documents, as they won’t be automatically copied

6.            Please re-create line item comments and overall comments, as they won’t be duplicated either

Here is a screenshot example:

*Signature from previous report may be attached as long as the expense line items/amount has not been changed. 

• select UW box
• have the check sent to yourself
• reroute the check through the us postal service

Sending checks to foreign addresses is highly discouraged as they tend to take a long time to reach their destination and more often than not they are lost. Additionally, most foreign banks do not accept US checks. We recommend processing a foreign wire in lieu of a check to a foreign location.

Tips for transportation, such as taxis and shuttles are ok to reimburse, any other tips are considered an incidental expense which is included in the meal per diem as meal per diem has an added amount for incidentals.

Please prorate the car rental. Take the total amount and divide by the number of days. Multiply the daily rate by the total number of business days (please also do this if they rented at a weekly rate but business days were less).

►Mozilla Firefox:

Go to : Tools->Options->Advanced Panel->Network->Cashed Web Content->Clear Now
After clearing cache log out of all browsers and restart the computer.

►Internet Explore (IE9):

1. Close all browser sessions (if needed restart computer)
2. Open a new Internet explorer browser, and go to delete browsing history
   Go to : Tools->Internet Options->Browsing History->Delete or ctr+shift+del
3. Make sure “Preserve Favorites website date” is unchecked and “Temporary Internet Files” and “Cookies” are checked
4. Click Delete, it may take some time to complete
5. Close browser
6. Open a new browser and login into Ariba
   https://ar.admin.washington.edu/AribaBuyer/uw/login.asp
   Note: As a reminder is important to never use the back arrow on the browser, and use the “Logout” button on the screen rather than just closing the browser.

►Other Internet Browsers:

For more information on clearing your internet cache using other browsers, see the WikiHow article: How to Clear your Browser's Cache

Travel charges to grants and contracts should  comply with university travel policies unless the sponsor/award imposes more restrictive travel provisions. Or an exception is approved by the sponsor.

Yes, unless the sponsor/award imposes a more restrictive travel provision. 

Yes, both AirBnB and VRBO are considered commercial lodging facilities. Please be sure to itemize all fees as accurately as possible in the itemization of the expense.

Only if you share a joint account with the person who paid, for example a husband and wife who share the same bank account. If this is the case, add a comment to the expense report (ER) indicating this. In all other instances, reimbursement must go to the traveler who actually paid for the expense. See claimant.

We understand this. From talking to other departments that travel a lot globally, they have said they just carry a receipt book that can be handwritten and have the individual providing the service sign. For taxis and things like this we know this is probably the most we will get unless they pay with a credit card.  We need the amount listed and which currency it was paid in, the service they paid for and the date. 

This is not a proper audit trail.  It is not reimbursable, Either split payment to the vendor directly and obtain receipts showing both payments made or have one person pay for the entire expense (see claimant).