Allowance Claims are accessed under the Management, Time and Attendance menu.
Note – Allowance Claims can be organised in many different ways such as cost codes, paypoints, organisations etc. depending on your organisations preferences. Throughout the guide the reference will be to organisation but this may not be the way your timesheets are organised, however the guide is the same irrespective of the way Allowance Claims are organised.
If your staff do not use Self Service and no entries have previously been entered then when you select the Allowance Claims option you will be presented with a screen with a no result message.
If you use self service, or you have already made entries for the current period then you will see these entries when you select Hours Claims. If nothing shows then there are no claims submitted that require authorisation. To access a claim previously submitted you click on the Organisation header which will display previously entered claims and what the current status is for those claims. You can click on the employee name to view current or enter new claims.
To make new entries you can select the employee by clicking on the button.
Allowance Claims – Data Entry
You can either select the employee using the Icon or pick the employee from your organisation list.
On the main screen you will see several sections explained below.
Employee Information – This is the data held on the Employee Staff Record System including Name and National Insurance number, Assignment Number, Payscale & ESR Position, Contracted weekly Hours, and the Service dates.
Unsubmitted Claims – This section details any claim entered and saved but not yet submitted for payment. This is also where you make new entries (See Below).
Submitted Claims – This section details any claim submitted for authorisation.
Authorised Claims – This section details any claims Authorised for the current period but not yet passed for payment. Claims remain here until such time as they are processed for payment on the payroll at which time they move to the Recently Processed Claim section.
Rejected Claims – This section details any claim entered and submitted for authorisation but rejected by the appropriate manager. See Below for further details
Recently Processed Claims – This section will display the last 5 items processed, however you can also view all previously processed claims by selecting the date range to include claims you wish to view.
Allowance Claims – Making a Claim
To make a new claim you select the on the Unsubmitted Claims section. You will then have the claim entry screen presented.
To make a claim you will need to enter the required fields. The entries will differ depending on the allowance claim that is being entered.
The field requirements are :
Date – The date the claim refers to which can be entered in the normal date formats or by using the date picker icon.
Allowance Type – Select the appropriate claim type from those available in the list. The list will only show those claim items that you are able to make a claim for. If the item you are wanting to claim for is not displayed in the list then contact your System Administrator.
Ward / Department – This field will be greyed out, however if after selecting the Allowance Type the field has the icon then you should click on the magnifying glass and select the correct Ward / Department where the allowance type was earned.
Shift Times Start / End – If the claim item requires times to be entered then the Icon will show next to the Start / End times for you to make entries. Either enter the times or select from the clock icon and pick the time.
Reason – If this field is grey then no entry is required but if this field is white then you need to select the reason from the drop-down list. You may also need to enter detail in the field below if that is not grey.
Claimed – Depending on the type of allowance being claimed this field will either require the number of claims, Number of hours or Sessions, or the amount being claimed. Invalid entries will show with the error and if you hover your cursor over this icon it will advise you of the error type. You will not be able to progress without correcting the entry. If you see a yellow warning this is a high value which will be accepted but is an indication that the amount is higher than expected.
Rate - If this field is grey then you are not able to make changes to the rate as it is fixed, however if the field is white then you are able to enter an override amount by deleting the current value and entering your own.
Payable – This will indicate the amount payable as a result of the previous input. This field is greyed out and cannot be changed.
Additional Information / Add Comment – The icon can be selected to add additional information if required relating to the allowance claim. Any comment added will be saved with the allowance claim and if entered the icon will change toto indicate that the additional information has been added.
When you have made all entries click on the icon. This will save all items entered and provide and error messages if the data is not correctly entered. This will not however submit the claim for authorisation. To do this you need to select the Icon.
Remember to submit the items for authorisation at the agreed intervals to ensure payment on time.
Allowance Claims – Rejected Claim
If the claim item is rejected you will receive an e-mail advising you that the item has been rejected. You will have a limited time to deal with any rejection. The timescale normally depends on the length of time your organisation will allow for late claims to be made.
When you get a rejection e-mail log into you account to the Management Allowance claim main screen and under Rejected Claims you will see the claim item. It will have an explanation of why it has been rejected. To see the reason click on the at the far right of the item.
The choices you have are to the claim which will delete it from the database, or you can the claim which will move it to the unsubmitted claims section for later editing, or finally you can select which moves the item to the unsubmitted claims section and then opens the editing screen so you can make changes to the claim item.
Remember to select the item you wish to deal with and not to leave rejected items too long before you deal with them through one of the three options.
Allowance Claims – Authorisation
If you have authority to authorise claims then you will either see any claims submitted by those employees who’s assignments you are responsible for and have Self Service access or after you or another data entry user have made entries you will be able to authorise rather than save the claim.
If you did not make the claim you need to check the details before approving the claim but once checked you will be able to either Authorise or reject the claim.
When checking an allowance claim there are a number of fields on the right hand side of the claim provided for you in checking the validity of the allowance claim. If they apply they will appear against the line of the claim. To see details you can either click the icon or hover your mouse over the icon and more detail will be displayed
If any of the validity checks apply they will appear against the line of the claim. To see details you can either click the icon or hover your mouse over the icon and more detail will be displayed.
In this case the was clicked on. To close the box just use the “x” in the right hand corner of the box.
The Following describes these icons
Calculation - This shows details of any calculation performed to obtain the amount payable. | |
Additional Information – This will indicate if there has been any additional information entered whilst completing the claim. | |
Budget Code – This will indicate if there have been any changes to the budget code entered. | |
Ward / Department – This would indicate if an entry has been made to the Ward / Department that the claim was earned at. | |
High Value – This is a warning that the value is deemed to be higher than normal but not high enough to have caused a rejection. Anything indicating this should normally be supported by additional information giving a reason for the higher than normal value. | |
Duplicate – This would indicate that there has been another claim for a similar allowance on the same day already claimed or paid. This does not however mean that it is invalid as it may be possible to claim multiple values for the same day. Remember to check the recently processed claims and all processed claims. | |
Absence Overlap – This would indicate that the employee also has an absence entered for this day. It would be unusual for an absence and allowance claim to be both valid so it is essential you check the absence entry. | |
Status Details – This will list the Status of the claim, including who submitted it and when. |
Once you are happy the claim is due you can select the claim using the box at the left hand side (or select multiple claims using the left hand box on the top of the section) and click the button.
You will be required to enter characters from your security word to authorise the payment.
Once authorised the claim will be ready for processing the next time a processing offload is performed according to your organisations deadline. If you discover an error before the item has been processed then you can still us the button to return the claim to the submitted stage and then select the button to return the claim to data entry stage for changes, or the option to delete it.
Once a claim is showing as processed it cannot be changed as it will have been actioned on the payroll. If you need to make alterations contact your Systems Administrator for guidance on how to proceed.
To reject a claim item select the item using the box on the left hand side and click thebutton.
This action will open the rejection reason box in which you need to supply a reason why you are rejecting the item and what the employee needs to do if they are to be able to alter the claim. It may be you require more information so you would advise them to complete the additional information box and resubmit the claim for authorisation.
Once you have entered the text for the rejection reason, click the button and the claim will move to rejected claims section and the employee will be advised of the rejection.