There is no approval workflow set up in Oracle Financials for the approval of project journals and transfers departments therefore need to implement manual processes.
1. Who should approve
It is necessary to consider who will approve project journals and transfers off system. By default, it is assumed that general ledger journal limits and supervisors will operate for project journals and transfers i.e. approvers have the same limits but approval is via a manual process rather than via the system.
If you do not wish to use the general ledger (GL) journal limits and supervisors for project journals and transfers (for example, you may wish to include different people or assign different limits), this can be done but the delegations must be managed and recorded in line with the guidance on managing delegations of authority.
Note: Approval limits must be manually applied
Because there is no system record of limits, care must be taken that approval limits are manually applied and the process and approval limits communicated to all members of the department that have access to projects in Oracle Financials
2. How to approve
Journals should be approved in advance wherever possible; however, practically this may be difficult.
When approving journals retrospectively, approvers have the same responsibility for undertaking a thorough check of each individual journal and delivering the same confirmations as if they approved in advance. Evidence of authorisation should be saved with the journal evidence.
To implement a manual process and maintain an audit trail of approvals, different options are available:
- Email – email approval is acceptable. Details of the journal or transfer can be emailed to an approver. Their approval email should be saved with the evidence of the reason for the journal or transfer; for example, approval of the spreadsheet to be posted via the journal wizard, or approval of details of the transfer to be made.
In this case, the transfers report can be reviewed to confirm that the transfers have been posted as approved.
- Paper-based – the approver signs a paper copy of the journal which is saved with the evidence. This may be approval of the spreadsheet to be posted via the journal wizard.
- System-based (project journals only) – one person prepares and submits the journal on the Oracle forms view, then notifies the relevant approver that it is ready for review. The approvers releases the journal on Oracle. This only applies to project journals (it does not work for the journal wizard or for transfers).