Finance Self Service (FAQ)

Below are answers to some of the frequently asked questions about using Finance Self Service. Don't see your question, reach out to payments@drake.edu.

Finance Self Service can be accessed from the Self Service link in the Commonly Used Apps section of myDrake. You will need to go to the Discover More section to initially add the Finance card to your navigation home page. See Navigating Self Service (How-to) for instructions.

If you are an existing user of the Banner Finance module, you will be given access to Finance Self Service upon launch. If you are a new user or are not able to access Finance Self Service, submit a security change request.

A Requisition for purposes of Finance Self Service is a request for payment to a vendor or person to be processed by the Accounting office.

No. The My Requisitions portal of Finance Self Service replaces the Payment Request Form previously submitted to payments@drake.edu. All payment requests should now be submitted directly through My Requisitions in Finance Self Service.

The system will automatically route requests for approvals as required by the University. Departmental approvals have been set up according to the authority levels established in the Approval Authority Policy located in the University Policy Library.

Each Banner Org has a level 1, level 2, and level 3 approver as designated by the department’s Dean/Director or President’s Council member. Depending on the amount of the request, the requisition will be routed to the appropriate approver(s). (For example: If a requisition request is for $100,000, the system will require approvals from the designated org’s level 1, level 2, and level 3 authorities. If the request is for $30,000, the system will only require the org’s level 1 and level 2 approval. If a request is for $3,000, it would only require the org’s level 1 approval).

Once all departmental approvals are completed, the request is routed to Accounting for review and processing for payment.

Yes. The requisition request will still require approval from the authority levels as listed in the Approval Authority Policy. The system does not have the capability to recognize whether a signed contract exists for the payment.

An email will be sent each morning to the approver(s) listing the requests that are pending their approval. These emails will come from Office of Accounting (accounting@drake.edu) with a subject line of ‘Document Approval Pending’.

Departments may have multiple authorized approvers on their departmental queues. If a document is no longer in the approval queue, another departmental approver has likely already approved the request. To view the approval history of a specific document, go to the My Finance Query portal, click on the view document iconand enter the document number.

There are multiple ways you can view the approval status on a document.

For documents in pending status:

• From the Approve Document portal, locate the requisition and click on the history icon. This will display an approval summary page indicating recorded approvals and approvals still required on the document.
• From the My Requisitions landing page, click on the information (i) icon next to the status to see pending approval queues.

To check the approval status of a specific document at any point:

• From the My Finance Query portal, click on the view document icon and enter the document number.

The system will only allow an invoice date greater than the transaction date and the transaction date must be a date that is within an open accounting period. This is a known system limitation. To resolve the error and allow processing, we recommend that you use the current date in the invoice field, rather than the actual invoice date, when completing the request.

Submit a new vendor or vendor update request using the New Vendor Information Request Form. A link to the New Vendor Information Request Form is located on the My Finance landing page. Once the request has been processed, the new vendor information will be available from the Vendor drop-down menu in My Requisitions.

Any special instructions for accounting (ex. I need to pick up the check or include an attachment with the payment) should be entered in the Business Purpose/Comments field located on the Requestor Information screen when creating a requisition request.

The system requires that attachments be classified as a Requisition Document type to be viewable by approvers regardless of the actual attachment contents.

The requestor will receive an email indicating the request has been disapproved. The email will specify which document has been disapproved and include any comments provided. The disapproval notice email will come from DrakeWorkflowNotification with a subject line of ‘Denied Financial Document’. The disapproved requisition will be returned to the Draft section of the My Requisitions landing page where it can be modified and resubmitted or deleted.

As part of this new process, requisition and purchase order documents are generated by the system.

• R numbers are requisition numbers
• P numbers are purchase order numbers.

All these transactions net to zero and have no impact on budget results. To exclude these items from your query, ensure your query includes ‘YTD’ in the ‘field’ option of your query parameters.

Items included in the commitments column of budget queries indicate requisitions that are pending payment processing in Accounting. These items appear in the committed column until payment has been completed. Once payment has been completed, they are reflected in the YTD or actuals column.

Yes. A requisition request should be submitted with the employee being reimbursed listed as the Vendor. The Travel Expense Reimbursement Form should be completed and uploaded as an attachment to the request.

To alert Accounting of prepaid expenses, please follow these steps:

• Use the 100000 13050 Prepaid expense FOAPAL when processing the payment. You will also need to enter your department org and program code to ensure proper routing for approval. Example: 100000 XXX (Org) 13050 XXX (Prog Code) .
• Choose Prepaid Expense from the Add Item drop-down menu.
  
• In the Business Purpose/Comments field, include additional details needed such as the department FOAPAL to be expensed and the appropriate split between fiscal years, if applicable. Accounting will use this information to charge your budget in the appropriate year.

Yes. Credit memos are processed through My Requisitions. You enter a credit memo the same way you enter a normal invoice except choose credit memo in the Add Item(s) menu instead of Payment Request. This will alert Accounting that it is a credit memo.

Detailed instructions can be found in these Finance Self Service guides. Further questions can be directed to accounting@drake.edu.