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UR Financials Newsletter Vol. 39 06.15.2026

In this issue:
  • °Â´Ç°ů°ě»ĺ˛ą˛âĚýExpenses (University only, excluding affiliates)
    • FY2026 deadline for Expenses
    • New reports to find outstanding airfare expenses
    • Enhanced Routing and Approval delegations
    • Hotel Itemization
    • Alcohol for individual meals – Attendee entry
    • Spend Authorization maintenance
    • Expenses User Group Meeting

Wednesday 07/29/26 1:00pm – 2:00pm
Wednesday 09/23/26 1:00pm – 2:00pm
Wednesday 11/18/26 1:00pm – 2:00pm

    • Helpful links
  • Accounts Payable (University only, excluding affiliates)
    • Research Subject Payments Policy
    • FY2026 June year-end close schedule
    • Differences between Workday and Graphite
    • Independent Contractor Reminders
    • Tips and Tricks

Workday Expenses

  • FY2026 deadline for Expenses
    The Expense Report must have an expense report date before 6/30/26 and fully approved by the department by 5pm on Monday, July 6 , 2026, to post in FY26.The Expense report date is located on the first page of the expense report, Header page.  The default is today’s date.  Remember to change the date to 06 / 30 / 2026 when the expense report is created on or after July 1st, 2026.
    This includes credit card transactions for advanced airfare and Amex corporate cards. Employees and their Expense Report creators should check the Expense Transactions report and submit an Expense Report for advanced airfare and Amex corporate card transactions before the year-end deadline.
  • New reports to find outstanding airfare expenses
    New reports were created to find unexpensed airfare and travel company booking fees that need to be reconciled on a Workday Expense Report. When the airfare is charged to the University’s credit card the IRS considers this an advance that must be accounted for within a reasonable amount of time.  The notification is listed at the top of the task, Create Spend Authorization.

    • Advanced airfare must be reconciled within 60 days of the date of return
    • When an advance is older than 120 days it may be reported to the IRS and included in your taxable wages

    Link to reference guide:

    URF1308a  My Central Travel Card Unexpensed Transactions

    Employees use this report to find their unexpensed central travel card (CTC)/ business travel account (BTA) transactions. These airfare and travel company fees need to be added to a Workday Expense Report.  The traveler will NOT receive reimbursement for these Company paid expenses.

    URF1308b My Team’s Central Travel Card Unexpensed Transactions

    Use this report to find your subordinate’s unexpensed central travel card (CTC)/ business travel account (BTA) transactions.

  • Enhanced Routing and Approval delegations
    Based on University Audit recommendations, Accounts Payable recently enhanced the approval routing process for expense reports.When the Payee has delegated the creation of expense reports and the approval of Expense Report Events to the same employee (Delegate) the enhanced routing and delegation setup will now cause the expense report to route to the Payees Manager for review.  It will no longer route to the Payee as Employee as Self for review/approval.

    • Previously when the Delegate who has access to create and approve expense reports for the payee the expense report would route to the payee as Employee as Self for review/approval when the payee retained access to their Inbox (My Tasks).
    • Beginning 5/28/26, when the Delegate who has access to create and approve expense reports for the payee the expense report will route to the Manager for review/approval as Employee as Self

    To avoid the expense report routing to the Manager instead of the Payee (Employee as Self), the Payee must revise their delegation and remove Expense Report Event in the For Business Process field. Users can also select None of the Above.

  • Hotel Itemization
    Hotel charges should be itemized to the appropriate Expense Item.  Accounts Payable does not review all expense reports. We may send back an expense report that is not itemized. Department and Financial approvers should send back expense reports when the hotel charges are not itemized.

    Expense charged to hotel room Expense Item 
    Hotel room and room tax Hotel – Domestic or International
    Meals / Snacks Individual meal
    Parking Parking
    Valet Parking
  • Alcohol for individual meals – Attendee entry
    When alcohol is purchased for an individual meal the Attendee field on the Workday Expense Report must contain at least two names. When the payee is the only name in the Attendee field an error is triggered.  To avoid triggering the error or to remove the error:

    • Create a new Guest named “Individual Meal”
    • Add Individual Meal to the attendee field along with the payee’s name

     

  • Spend Authorization maintenance
    Beginning 7/1/2026, Accounts Payable will close Spend Authorizations when the Spend End Date is older than 90 days.  Spend Authorization maintenance removes clutter from Workday, frees up the estimated funds for other business uses, prevents duplicate reimbursements, and provides Finance teams with an accurate picture of liabilities.The Spend End Date is the date of return from the trip.  Spend Authorizations should be linked to an Expense Report or closed within 60 days of the return date of the trip.  Workday will automatically close a Spend Authorization that is linked to an Expense Report when the Initiator checks the box next to “Final Expense Report for Spend Authorization”.
  • Expenses user group meetings (held monthly)Workday Expenses User group meetings are another opportunity intended to provide support for Expenses functionality to departments including information sharing, best practices, and tip/tricks.  These meetings are more about discussing what is/is not working well to identify enhancement opportunities.  Upcoming meetings: Link to join meeting Microsoft Teams
  • Helpful Links

Accounts Payable

  • Research Subject Payments Policy
    The Research Subject Payments Policy and the have been updated recently. Accounts Payable is holding 2 sessions in June to go over the policy and we welcome everyone to attend.Thursday, June 18 1-1:30PMThursday, June 25 1:30-2PMZoom link for all sessions: click Recording will be posted online
  • FY2026 June year-end close schedule is now available on . Please refer to this schedule on important deadlines. The deadlines that pertain to Accounts Payable are as follows:
    • Supplier Invoice Requests must be fully approved in Workday no later than 5pm on Monday, June 22, 2026.
    • All other Supplier Invoices must be received in Accounts Payable no later than 5pm on Monday, June 22, 2026 by emailing to AccountsPayable@finance.rochester.edu

Please monitor your My Tasks in Workday for Match Exceptions awaiting your action, SIRs awaiting your action/approval, etc. so that you are completing these tasks on time for invoices to post in FY2026.

URF1312 Receipt Accrual – PO Line Amounts is a new report made available yesterday that has been developed to give departments PO and line amounts details for the activity posting with the Journal Source: Receipt Accrual. We are working on ensuring the right role have access to this report for those who aren’t currently able to run the report.

  • Differences between Workday and Graphite
    • Workday – Procurement and Payment System
    • Graphite – Supplier Registration and Onboarding System

If you need to purchase or pay for something, you would submit a requisition or a Supplier Invoice Request (SIR) in Workday.

If the supplier is not in Workday, you will be unable to complete and submit a requisition or SIR. You will first need to submit a New Supplier Justification (NSJ) request in Graphite for a new supplier.

Once the supplier completes their registration process, they will be setup in Workday and then you can submit your transaction (requisition or SIR).

  • Independent Contractor Reminders
    A summary of the criteria and associated procurement method (SIR vs Requisition) is located on the Independent Contractor webpage, as well as required forms. An  is required for both a SIR and Requisition.  In addition, you will also need one of the following agreements: is required with a Requisition is required with a SIR

  • Tips and Tricks
    Accounting Date versus Budget Date in Workday

    • Invoice Date – Entered at the time of invoice entry.  Date comes from the supplier as indicated on their invoice to us.  An invoice does NOT post to a ledger until it is fully Approved (Status updates to Approved) – see Accounting Date.
    • Due Date – Determined at the time of invoice entry.  Date is derived by Workday when the Supplier and Invoice Date is entered for an invoice: Workday looks up the Payment Term for the Supplier, applies that to the Invoice Date, to determine the Due Date.  AP staff can enter a Due Date Override as needed such as if supplier normally paid Net 30 but down payment must be paid immediately.
    • Accounting Date – Determined when the invoice is fully Approved (Status updates to Approved).  At that time, Workday first looks at the Invoice Date to determine if the Month of the Invoice Date is an Accounting Period that is Open, if so the Accounting Date will be the date of the invoice.  If the Month of the Invoice Date is an Accounting Period that is Closed, Workday will then look sequentially for the first Open Accounting Period:  If an invoice dated May 2023 is not fully Approved until today, Workday looks at May 2023 which is Closed, then June which is Closed, etc until it gets to October 2023 which is Open – the invoice will have an Accounting Date of 10/1/2023.Note that future Accounting Periods are opened on the 15th of each month.  For example, November 2023 was opened on 10/15.  If an invoice dated 12/2 is fully approved on 11/15, the Accounting Date will be 12/2 even though it was approved earlier.
    • Budget Date – For supplier invoices, Budget Date is derived from the Invoice Date.  I expect Invoice Dates and Budget Dates to almost always match.  Budget Date can be edited via Journal Entry as appropriate (such as when the wrong date was entered for a SIR payment which are sometimes honoraria that are not processed right away and don’t have actual invoices with dates) and is most likely to happen when Grant FAO is involved.  Budget Dates are especially important for GRs and PRs.
    • Payment Date – Not associated with postings on ledgers.  Settlement run filters look at the Due Dates of invoices to determine which invoices are picked up in that settlement run.  The Payment Date is the date of the Settlement Run in Workday.  Ad Hoc Payments are different in that Payment Date is the Date entered/integrated for the AHP (examples: EPIC file date = Payment Date, manually entered AHP Date = Payment Date) which is not linked/derived when settlement run is created.