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ONLINE EXPENSES CLAIM SUBMISSION GUIDE
Contents
1. Introduction to the Online Expenses System .......................................................................... 2
2. Expense Claim Administration Overview ................................................................................ 4
3. Entering Expense Claims ....................................................................................................... 6
4. Expense Claim Submission .................................................................................................. 11
5. Expense Claim Approval ...................................................................................................... 12
- Review RETURNED Items or Claims (delete, amend or resubmit).................................... 12
- Reimbursement................................................................................................................. 12
6. Appendix .............................................................................................................................. 13
- Appendix A (Approval Stages 1- 18) ................................................................................. 13
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ONLINE EXPENSES CLAIM SUBMISSION GUIDE
1. Introduction to the Online Expenses System
All permanent members of staff must claim for reimbursement of business expenses incurred using
the Online Expenses system which is accessed at https://www.sel-expenses.com.
In order to login, enter UOE as the company ID, your University login ID (though this is not the same
account) and your Online Expenses password. Please not that you cannot register for an account
via the link on the above screen. You must instead apply for one by completing the application form
under the ‘Staff Expenses and Purchasing Cards’ category in SID.
The default homepage is shown below. Additional menu items will be displayed on your home page
if you hold a University Purchasing Card, are a Delegate or Approve Claims. Selecting a menu
item and any subsequent submenu choices you make will lay a breadcrumb trail in the blue title bar
which you should use to navigate up a level rather than using the browser back button. To return to
the home screen click either of the available icons which are displayed on all screens.
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ONLINE EXPENSES CLAIM SUBMISSION GUIDE
A brief explanation of each of the menu items shown on the previous page is given in the below
table. For more comprehensive guidance, go to the relevant section within this document.
Name of Menu Item
Add New Expenses
Purpose of Menu Item
Creates a new claim, upon saving opens the Add / Edit Expenses
screen. If you already have a ‘Current Claim’ this option will instead
open the Add / Edit Expenses screen straight up (new expenses
added will be saved to this ‘Current Claim’.
My Claims
Shows submenus, ‘Current Claims’ (claims created but not
submitted – expenses items can be added, updated or edited
here), ‘Submitted Claims’, (claims actively being processed) and
‘Previous Claims’, a complete list of your completed/paid claims).
My Details
View and change your account details, set up a delegate for your
account and add a new vehicle into the system.
Help & Support
Return University specific guidance only by entering UOE into the
search box.
View My Company Policy
Opens the University of Exeter Expenses & Purchasing Card
Policy.
View My Claimable Items
Shows all expense items that you’re able to claim.
Reports
Available to finance teams only.
Expenses360 Mobile App
Details how to set up Expenses360 on a mobile device, note you
should first add your mobile device by selecting ‘My Details’ and
then ‘My Mobile Devices’.
GreenLight
Not used.
Within all screens it is important to look out for on screen instructions and other options. Some
screens will have icons displayed which give options relating to the line they are against. By
hovering over any icon you’ll see what it does – click on the icon to action. Many icons are standard
across screens.
Edit
Delete
Help
Attach Receipt
Primarily for editing expenses prior to submission or
during approval
Delete an expense line or erroneously synchronised
expenses from Expenses360
Brings up help relevant to the specific area
View Receipt
For attaching electronic receipts not processed through
Expenses360
For viewing electronic receipts
View Journey
View all of the journey steps of a mileage expense
Item Flagged
Shows that a particular expense item has been flagged
so it may be a duplicate or over 3 months old etc.
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ONLINE EXPENSES CLAIM SUBMISSION GUIDE
2. Expense Claim Administration Overview
Expenses not being claimed against research grants or EU project budgets can be submitted in fully
electronic claims, within which electronic copies of original receipts are attached to expense items
instead of it being necessary for the original hard copies to be sent to finance teams. Original
expense receipts must be retained until after you have had confirmation that the claim has
been paid.
The University must retain original expense receipts for claims made against EU project
budgets. Therefore you should send all research grant expense original receipts to the relevant
finance team in your college or service, together with a claim printout, unless you are absolutely
certain that the research grant(s) being claimed against are not EU funded, in which case fully
electronic submission is acceptable.
All types of expenses can be entered directly into the main system or alternatively by using the
Expenses360 mobile app. Shown below are the different ways in which an expense claim can be
submitted.
1) Expenses360 (see separate Expenses360 user guide)
Enter the expense item(s) into Expenses360 using your smart device.
After entering and saving an expense, you’ll be prompted to take a photo of your receipt, this
will then attach automatically.
Synchronise Expenses360.
Open the Online Expenses system to complete and then submit the claim.
2) Non-Expenses360 (e-receipts or scanned receipts)
Enter the expense item(s) into the Online Expenses system.
Once saved, you are returned to the summary screen from where you can attach the file
version of your receipt(s) using the ‘Manage Receipts’ function.
Submit the electronic claim.
3) Non-Expenses360 (receipt hard copies)
Enter the expense item(s) into the Online Expenses system.
Print a copy of your claim.
Attach the original receipts to the claim printout.
Submit the electronic claim and send the paperwork to your finance team.
The below flow diagram offers a simple view of the expense claim submission and approval
process. It is assumed that Expenses360 users will add a receipt when creating an expense.
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ONLINE EXPENSES CLAIM SUBMISSION GUIDE
3. Entering Expense Claims
We recommend that claimants use the Expenses360 app to create expenses, for which there is a
separate user guide. This section explains how to enter expenses directly into the Online Expenses
System and shown below is a screenshot of the main claim item entry screen. Expenses created
using Expenses360, when synchronised and reconciled to a claim, will populate most of the
fields below and expense item specific fields automatically.
In order to add an expense directly into the system, click ‘Add New Expenses’. If you have already
started a claim but not yet submitted it, the expense item entry screen will open and can be
completed, the item will be added to this existing claim. Should there be more than one claim started
but not submitted, you can select which claim to add the current expense(s) to using the dropdown
menu shown below.
If an ‘Add / Edit Claim’ screen is brought up, there are no
active claims that your new expense(s) can be added to.
Do not amend the system generated claim name but do
enter an appropriate description for your claim.
Upon saving the newly created claim, an expense item
entry screen will appear as shown below.
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General Details
Enter the Date of the item or items being claimed or select from the calendar. If typing the date there
is no need to enter separators – these are automatic. The date format is DD/MM/YYYY.
Select a Reason for claiming the items from the drop down list. This is for reporting purposes and is
mandatory. It is important that you select the most appropriate reason, distinguishing in particular
between externally funded research and non-research grants/projects.
The default Country is United Kingdom. Select the appropriate country from the drop down list for
where the expense was incurred. This does not necessarily mean that you paid in a different
currency. Typing the first letter of the country will bring up the first possible name. Repeating the
letter will scroll through the names.
The default currency is Pound Sterling – if the expense was paid for in another currency select
from the list. Typing the first letter of the currency will bring up the first possible name. Repeating the
letter will scroll through the names.
When an alternative currency is selected the Exchange Rate box will appear showing a recently
entered exchange rate. If necessary, overwrite this value with the exchange rate you received and
select the relevant option from the dropdown box. You should provide evidence of the exchange rate
received either by a receipt or a copy of your credit card statement.
College/Service
This will default to the College or Service in which you are employed and cannot be amended. If you
are claiming against a budget not held by your college or service, please provide details in the
narrative so that your finance team know to liaise with the college or service in which the budget is
held. If the wrong college or service shown, please log a SID call.
Claim Type
This is a critical part of the approval process and incorrect classification will most likely
delay reimbursement of your claim.
Cash claims - You must only use one claim type per claim, i.e. academic staff should batch
‘Research Grant’ expenses and standard ‘College’ expenses on separate claims. This will
ensure much quicker processing and payment due to it not being necessary for a claim to
pass through the approval stages for more than one claim type.
Card claims - Claim types can be mixed on the same claim. This is because a single
purchase card statement must be reconciled to a single claim. If your statement contains one
or more transactions which are research grant expenditure, please ensure that you submit a
claim printout and the research grant expense receipts to your college finance team, even if
you attach scanned receipts for the non-research grant expenses.
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For employees of each College or Service there are a number of alternative claim types to select
from, the below table summarises each of them.
Claim Type
When to Use
Available To / Used By
Service
Standard Professional Services
claims.
All Professional Services
College
Standard College claims.
All Colleges
Research Grant
Expenses claimed against a
research grant.
All Colleges
College Services
(other services, use ‘Service’)
Centre for Medical History
Centre for Medical History
expenses.
HUMS
Partnership/GSE only
GSE expenses (only for school
related visits).
SSIS (GSE)
PR/Event
Expenses claimed against a PR or
event budget.
CAMS
Department
This will default to your own area within your College (not applicable to Professional Services) and
cannot be amended. If it is incorrect please log a SID call.
Specific Details
The Expense Category and Expense Item boxes only appear when no item has been selected
from the complete list on the left-hand side. Within this screen they are optional; we recommend that
you instead select items via the complete list, as shown below, which will allow you to populate
multiple expense item sub-forms on the same page. The system remembers your most recently
entered expenses which means that initially, blank forms for these expense items are visible.
Simply deselect the tick boxes to remove these entry forms as appropriate and select those
that you are entering this time.
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Key Points
•
Items are listed alphabetically. If you cannot read the full item name hover over it and the full
description will be displayed in a bubble box.
•
You can select as many items as you want as long as they all relate to the same general
details already completed at the top.
•
If you select an item you must complete the details as some of the boxes are mandatory and
you will be unable to save if they are left blank.
•
If you select an item by mistake just untick it.
•
Any key policy or information points are set out just below the item name when the fields
appear on screen.
•
When inputting directly into the system, to enter two items of the same type under the same
general details, it will be necessary to complete and save the first and then select ‘New Item’
from the menu on the subsequently brought up claim summary screen.
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The specific fields for each item will vary; however the following are standard for all items except
mileage.
Do you have a receipt – you are expected to provide a receipt and should select ‘Yes’.
However if in exceptional circumstances you do not have a receipt select ‘No’ and select the reason
from the drop down box lower down.
Does it include a VAT number and VAT rate – these buttons will appear if the item could have
VAT included. This refers to UK VAT only. You should select ‘Yes’ if your receipt includes a VAT
number and the VAT amount and you made the purchase in the UK.
Total (Gross) – the amount you are claiming.
Narrative – this field is for entering the additional information that you want to appear against this
transaction, to enable approvers and budget holders reviewing financial reports to understand why
you made the claim. Note that you do not need to enter the date of the expense as this is entered
under General Details, nor do you need to enter your own name into this field.
Finance code (Aptos) – this field is for filling in the full Aptos account code beginning 1-XX-X-XXXXXX.............. It is a free text field with no validation. You can copy and paste from any document
where the code is stored or you can type it in. If you do not know the code to use, you should
contact your finance team who will be able to help. If you are unable to obtain the necessary code
when creating an expense, you can enter a partial code or note in this field to enable you to save it.
You must enter something.
When all fields are populated, click to
the expense.
To add a receipt to your newly added expense, click the
icon on the expense item summary
line. The above icon (clicked on any expense item line) takes you into the ‘Manage Receipts’
screen, from where receipts can be added to all expense items. There is a separate guide available
for managing receipts.
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4. Expense Claim Submission
Once a claim contains all of the expenses that you require it to, it is ready to be submitted.
When submitting, if the claim contains any expenses over three months old, a prompt will ask for
justification for the delay in submitting. Finally, you are given the opportunity to rename the claim or
update the description, (you might have done this already at time of creation), the system
generated name should be retained but you can update the description.
Click save and then accept the declaration to complete the claim submission process.
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5. Expense Claim Approval
Expense claim approval can be broken down into three phases.
1) Finance team checking
2) Standard approval
3) Escalated approval (usually conditional)
Within each of the above phases there can be several steps. You can minimise the number of steps
your claim will require processing at, by limiting the claim types included within the same claim to
one or two. See Appendix A for a full list of signoff group stages.
Review RETURNED Items or Claims (delete, amend or resubmit)
An approver may reject one or more claim items back to a claimant. If any of the items in your claim
are returned at an approval stage you will receive an email advising you of this and asking you to log
on to view the returned item through My Claims - Submitted Claims.
Go to the claim overview screen and view the Claim History, the most recent entry will show the
reason for the expense being rejected or questioned. On the same screen, in the expense item list
the returned item(s) will be highlighted.
If you just need to provide further information or do not agree with the reason for return you can
resubmit
without amendment – termed a disputed item. You will be presented with a box to
complete with the additional information or the reason for returning without amendment.
Alternatively you can either edit
the expense item or delete
it from the claim.
When you have dealt with the returned items and saved, the claim will automatically be re-submitted
and the claim history updated.
Reimbursement
Cash claims which have reached the final approval stage (18) by 11am on Tuesday, provided there
are no finance code issues, will be reimbursed into the same bank account that your salary is paid
into on the Friday of that week. An email confirmation specifying the payment date will be sent to
your University email account once fully processed. Delays are likely to occur around the Easter and
Christmas bank holidays so if at all possible try to get claims submitted well in advance of these
times.
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6. Appendix
Appendix A (Approval Stages 1- 18)
Approval Stage
1
Stage Description
Claim pre-checking (custom)
Used By
UEMS (ECEHH)
UEMS (CLAHRC)
UEMS (PENTAG)
SSIS (SSI)
2
Claim checking (custom)
HUMS (CMH)
SSIS (Partnership)
3
Claim checking by finance teams (college nonresearch and service expenses)
All
4
Claim checking by finance teams (research
expenses)
All colleges, some
professional services.
5
Credit card claim checking by finance teams
(college non-research and service expenses)
All
6
Credit card claim checking by finance teams
(research expenses)
All colleges, some
professional services.
7
Claim approval (standard)
All
8
Claim approval (research)
All colleges, some
professional services.
9
Claim approval (custom)
HUMS (CMH)
SSIS (Partnership)
10
Exceptional item approval (equipment)
All
11
Exceptional item approval (over £1k or 2k)
All
12
Exceptional item approval (over 3 Months)
All
13
Exceptional item approval (train first class)
All
14
Exceptional item approval (flight business
class)
All
15
Exceptional item approval (custom)
CAMS, HUMS, CLES
16
Claim approval (where a signoff route contains
either a conditional or a mandatory second
approval stage).
CLES
HUMS (mgmt.)
UEBS (card/mgmt.)
UEMS (card/mgmt.)
17
Accounts Payable (cards)
All
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Accounts Payable (cash – claim payment)
All
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