Please read as this notice contains important information for claimants.
The following enhancements and updates will be implemented to the Expense Claim System (ECS) system effective Monday, February 13, 2017:
Functional Enhancements
- Fields have been added to allow the input of the title of the person(s) authorizing the claim. At least one of these fields must be completed in order to save/validate your claim. Since these titles will now appear on your printed claim you will no longer have to input them manually when the claim is signed.
- The Purpose and Special Notes sections have been combined as “Purpose/Notes”. This will eliminate the redundancy of having to enter similar information in both sections. Use this section to enter the purpose of the trip/claim along with any other pertinent information related to the claim.
- The Tri-Council Certification form has been revised to better reflect the information required by the sponsor. When the Tri-Council box is selected on a claim there are several cross validations that will help ensure the appropriate information is included on the claim. With more complete information included on a claim before it is submitted, there should be fewer claims needing to be returned for additional information to be added.
- ECS now gives you the functionality to insert a line between two existing lines on a claim. For example, if you wish to insert a line between Entry/Receipt #2 and #3, simply start a new line at the end of your claim, label the Entry/Receipt number 2.1 and save your claim. ECS will reorganize the order based on the Entry/Receipt numbers and show Entry/Receipt 2.1 between numbers 2 and 3.
- In the ‘Coding’ section of the claim, links to the appropriate sections of the Travel and Busines Expense Reimbursement Policy and Procedure have been added to provide guidance, if needed, while completing your claim.
- The ‘Validate’ and ‘Submit’ buttons have been merged into one button labelled ‘Validate/Submit’.
Policy Updates
- The per kilometer allowance for use of a private vehicle on University business has been increased from .43 per km to .48 per km for kilometers driven on or after February 1, 2017. The ECS system will automatically determine, based on date of travel, whether to use the old rate or the new rate in calculating the total reimbursement.
- As communicated earlier, ‘Per Diem’ meal allowances are now permitted, Effective January 1, 2017. When claiming a ‘Per Diem’ allowance, receipts are NOT required. To accommodate this, ECS now has two options for Meals under the “Expense Category Object” drop down list:
Meals – With Receipts and Meals – Per Diem. Please select the appropriate item from the list when entering your claim.
Control Enhancements
- In an effort to avoid the printing and signing of claims that have not been Validated/Submitted, a watermark indicating “Unvalidated” will now display on such claims when printed. This will serve as a reminder to validate/submit your claim and then print a validated claim for signature.
- Certain mandatory fields within ECS are required to be completed for a claim to be processed. In the past, when one of these fields was incomplete, your claim would be returned to you so the missing information could be added. Alerts have now been added to the validate/submit process to tell you when a mandatory field is incomplete. Messages regarding the missing information will display on the ‘Processing Status’ line to help you identify what information may be incomplete. You will need to complete the missing information before the claim can be successfully validated. This should help reduce the number of claims we return to you due to incomplete information.
- A new certification has been added to the approval section of the printed claim to clarify what an approver is certifying when they sign a claim.
If you have any questions, please contact us at ECS@uoguelph.ca or call any of us at the extensions listed below.
ECS Team: Vikki Brown (Ext 52840), Shanyce Ward (Ext 52865), Charin Rivet (Ext 52866), Christine Chartier (Ext 53443)