
With over 140,000 Expense Requests System (ERS) reimbursements and 260,000 Purchasing Card (PCard) transactions each year, the FMS Procurement Services team is continuously identifying and implementing improvements to make these processes as efficient and effective as possible.
Effective February 10, updates within ERS and the PCard Module will provide a more intuitive and streamlined experience for transaction preparers and verifiers. These updates, made in response to user feedback, include:
- Reduced requirements and an improved experience when entering beneficiary information in ERS that will shorten preparation time for about half of all transactions.
- A streamlined user experience with more intuitive fields, buttons, and other elements within ERS and the PCard Module.
These updates, described in more detail below, are part of a series of enhancements that will increase procurement efficiency in the first half of 2025, such as a new technology coming later in spring that will enable departments to submit visitor honoraria payments or visitor reimbursements without first requiring the non SU payee record setup process in the Supplier/Payee Request Form.
Improved beneficiaries process
The field to enter beneficiaries will only appear in ERS if the expense may require tax reporting (based on the transaction’s Payment Category, Expense Type, and Expenditure Type) and it will be moved to a more intuitive location at the end of the transaction. Some related fields, such as the beneficiary attestation box, will be removed or updated.
Taxable expenses that will require beneficiary information include:
- Relocation expenses
- Recruitment expenses
- STAP expenses
- Gifts and Gift Cards
- Human subject travel reimbursements.
Substantiating expenses with attendee(s)/beneficiary information
The guidance for adding attendee/beneficiary information to an expense report will also be simplified. The new guidance will only require specific attendee/beneficiary names to be noted/attached for expenses with up to 10 beneficiaries; a summary may be used for 11 or more individuals (e.g., 200 Financial Management Services staff).
User experience improvements in ERS
In ERS, user experience improvements include:
- Clarifying and/or moving warning messages for improved visibility
- Increasing the number of characters available to explain a delayed transaction
- Renaming the button used to upload attachments for clarity
User experience improvements in the PCard Module
Updates to the user interface in the PCard Module are primarily on the Verify PCard Transactions screen. They include:
- Removing several fields (such as the Receipt Missing? drop down, which will be replaced with a message prompting the verifier to include an attachment when required).
- Rearranging the order of some fields in a more intuitive way, such as grouping most of the pre-filled fields together.
- Adding or changing fields for clarity and ease of use. For example, a new field will be added that calculates Cost Per Attendee for meals.
- Updating several fields with drop-down menus to default to the most common choice.
Learn More
Mark your calendar for the information session on February 27 at 10 a.m., where the Business Expense and Card Services teams will review these changes. The registration link is available on the FMS Events page.
Fingate pages about the Expense Requests System and PCard Module, including How To pages and guidance on entering beneficiary information, will be updated on February 10. Note that current users of ERS and the PCard Module do not need to retake any Learning courses.
Effective February 10, beneficiary information will only be required within an Expense Report when there is a tax implication related to the expense.
The Expense Requests System (ERS) will validate each transaction’s Payment Category, Expense Type and Expenditure Type for taxability. Only five types of expenses will require information for the beneficiary field in ERS: relocations, recruitment, Staff Training Assistance Program (STAP), gifts, and human subject travel reimbursements. Note that travel expenses (aside from human subject travel expenses) and business meals will not require beneficiary entry in ERS unless they are part of a relocation and/or recruitment.
What is changing in the Expense Report
Updated Expense Report pages within ERS include:
- General Information page (first step)
- Transaction Details screens for Airfare, Gifts, Gift Card - Employee and STAP
- Allocations and Approvers page (second to last step)
- Review (final step)
The Beneficiary Information section will move from the beginning of the expense report (General Information page) to the second to last page (Allocations and Approvers page).
- A message will appear at the bottom of the General Information page stating: The field to enter beneficiaries has been moved to the Allocations and Approvers screen.
- The Beneficiary Information section will become available to enter information based on the Expense Type(s) and/or Expenditure Type(s) selected.
The Transaction Lines: Details pages will be revised as follows:
- The airfare details page will include a new Affiliation dropdown at the top of the Additional Information Section. Preparers will need to choose either:
- Stanford Traveler (Traveler’s Name is searchable to choose the specific SU traveler)
- Visitor (allows a name to be typed into the Traveler’s Name field)
- If the Airfare expense type is selected with the Travel Booking Method: Stanford Travel - Egencia, the line for the traveler’s name will default to the Payee Name. Other beneficiary travelers may be added by searching the database for (1) employee (SU faculty, staff, or student), (2) supplier, or by selecting (3) Other and entering a name. Currently, the airfare traveler name is a drop-down selection with only the names of the payee and beneficiaries entered in the expense report.
- On the pages for Gifts, Gift Card - Employee and STAP Expense Types, the section to enter recipient information will be changed from a dropdown menu to a search field.
On the Allocations and Approvers page, several fields in the Beneficiary Information section will be revised or removed so less information needs to be provided:
- Is the payee the only beneficiary? will be replaced with the more intuitive Are there additional beneficiaries other than the payee? If there are no tax consequences for the additional beneficiaries, the following statement appears: Beneficiary information is not required.
- The Non-Resident Alien column in the beneficiary chart will be removed.
- The Amount column in the beneficiary chart will become optional.
On the Review page:
- The beneficiary attestation will be removed.
Effective February 10, user experience enhancements will appear in ERS across the following pages.
On the General Information page:
- If the user changes the Category on a transaction they copied, or on a transaction they had previously worked on, a warning message appears stating that this action will cause the rest of the field values to be deleted.
- A new field, FYI: Business Purpose (first 30 characters), will appear below the Business Purpose. The field summarizes the Business Purpose in 30 characters. It allows users to see how the business purpose for Expense Reports or Non-PO Payments is summarized in OBI or FFIT reports.
On the Review page:
- In the Delay Explanation field for expense transactions more than 60 days old, the character limit will increase from 150 to 500 characters to provide adequate space for the explanation.
- If an attachment is required for a transaction, a warning message about uploading confidential information will appear at the top of the Attachment window (rather than the bottom of the window). For clarity, the Upload Files button will be renamed Submit.
Effective February 10, the following user experience enhancements will appear in the PCard Module. Unless stated otherwise, all the enhancements will appear on the Verify PCard Transactions page.
The following fields will be removed from the page:
- Receipt Missing? This field will be replaced with a prompt from the system if attachments/receipts are missing; receipts are required for transactions of $75 or more.
- Are you sending backup documents?
- Attestation statement and checkbox in the Attachments section. The attestation states that PCard expenses were incurred on behalf of Stanford and they comply with university policies and local and federal guidelines and regulations.
A number of fields will be rearranged to appear in a more logical order:
- The pre-filled fields will be grouped together on the top left side of the page.
- The fields users need to fill out will be grouped on the top right side of the page, including the Business Purpose.
- The Location field will be moved from the Use Tax section to the top right side of the page to group the tax information together.
Default responses, reflecting the most common response, will be added to some fields to save time for users:
- Default Was Correct Sales Tax Paid? to Yes
- Default Does this purchase include a personal expense? to No
Other usability improvements will include the following:
- In the Details from Merchant section, the Business Purpose field will be renamed to Line Remarks (Optional) for clarity.
- In the Charge Accounts section,
- For the Expenditure Type, the field will be blank rather than having a default value.
- The Allocation (Split) Reason will be optional rather than required.
- The Attachments section will allow the selection of multiple files when adding backup documentation to PCard transactions.
- In all areas where transactions can be approved, including the SU PCard Approver worklist, the long name will be displayed along with the Project, Task and Award Numbers so approvers do not have to look up the code.
Two new fields will be added:
- If the Expense Type is a meal, the new Cost Per Attendee field will display and calculate the cost.
- The new field FYI: Business Purpose (First 30 Characters) will be added below the Business Purpose. The field summarizes the Business Purpose in 20 Characters and adds 9 characters of the merchant name. It allows users to see how the business purpose is summarized in OBI or FFIT reports.