In Workday, the policy compliance audit function for Expenses (including purchasing card, shared liability, and personal card transactions) is carried out by the Division of Business Services central audit pool.
Explaining Centralized Audit of Expenses
The University of Wisconsin–Madison historically structured expense approvals to be decentralized, with approval roles localized to departments and divisions. Workday Expenses is designed with a centralized model of compliance review, where all expense reports for the institution route to the specialized central audit policy compliance team first in the approval workflow. After the policy compliance approval step is complete, reports route to Driver Worktag Managers for budget and funding review.
Benefits of the Centralized Audit Model for Workday
Greater consistency in audit reviews: A dedicated team of auditors ensures that expense reports are reviewed uniformly, providing fair and consistent application of university policies.
Increased efficiency in time to approval: By centralizing the audit function, we anticipate faster turnaround times for expense report approvals, reducing delays and time to payment.
Enhanced standardization: A centralized approach ensures university-wide standards and compliance requirements are adhered to more rigorously across all divisions.
How the Centralized Audit process works
There are at a minimum two levels of required approvals for expense reports in Workday. First, the Division of Business Services Expense Partners review—and revise, if necessary—for policy compliance. Approved expense reports are then routed to the Driver Worktag Manager(s) for budget and funding review.
Central Audit Team
Roles and responsibilities of the team
- Financial transaction policy compliance audit (Expense Partners)
- UW Foundation billing audit for Foundation Expense Items (Expense Foundation Specialists)
- UW Foundation accounts receivable and billing processing (Expense Foundation Specialists)
Meet the team
Centralized Audit Processing Statistics
Central Audit Processing Status
The Central Audit Processing Status table has been updated with new processing statistics. Previously, the only available figure was an estimated turnaround time for newly submitted reports in business days. This figure represented a projected maximum Expense Partner turnaround time in an effort to convey transparently the anticipated delays to our campus community.
The table above now reflects enhanced data and reporting capabilities with the actual daily average and median processing times for reports Expense Partners approved each day. These processing times do not include Driver Worktag manager approval time or any time added by send backs. The potential maximum Expense Partner processing time is also still listed. This figure is based on the oldest unassigned report in the Expense Partner queue. Longer delays may be experienced if expense reports contain non-compliant items, or require follow-up and additional information from the cardholder or claimant. For clarity and simplicity, all reporting has been standardized to calendar days rather than business days.
Direct questions to expensepartnerpool@bussvc.wisc.edu.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Common questions about the centralized audit process.
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What does a policy compliance audit consist of?
The policy compliance audit consists of business purpose review, data entry validation, and policy compliance review. Auditors are looking to confirm a business purpose cites a benefit to UW (research, teaching, outreach, or other mission-driven activity). Auditors will validate that Purchasing Card, Shared Liability Card, and out-of-pocket transactions match receipts and supporting documentation (e.g., dates, dollar amounts, expense types). Auditors will ensure that each transaction meets the requirements set forth in the relevant UW–Madison policies.
Who will an auditor reach out to if there are questions on a report?
If there are questions on an expense report, the campus auditor will reach out to the Expense Data Entry Specialist, claimant, or cardholder directly via email.
When will auditors send back reports?
Central campus auditors will make every effort to keep workflow moving forward to ensure prompt payment. Having said that, there are certain situations where expense report sendbacks may occur.
An expense report (or individual Expense Lines) may be sent back to the claimant/Expense Data Entry Specialist if:
- There are three or more issues with an expense report (for example, a report has an insufficient business purpose, missing receipt, and missing agenda).
- If three or more issues are found, then the auditor will send back the whole report with instructions to resolve/fix the items, rather than emailing the claimant or Expense Data Entry Specialist and fixing/adding items themselves or sending back individual lines separately.
- This is done to emphasize the educational aspect of the send-back function, where the claimant or Expense Data Entry Specialist can then learn from mistakes and omissions, fix them, and resubmit.
- There are expenses claimed that do not comply with policy that require an exception from the Divisional Business Office to pay/reimburse.
- For noncompliant out-of-pocket transactions, the report or individual Expense Lines will be sent back with instructions to remove Expense Lines (or cancel sent-back Expense Lines) or request a Divisional exception via Microsoft PowerAutomate. If a Divisional exception is approved, the approval PDF should be uploaded to the expense report, and the report may be resubmitted.
- For noncompliant Purchasing Card or Shared Liability Card transactions, the report or individual Expense Lines will be sent back with instructions to mark the noncompliant items “Personal” or request a Divisional exception via Microsoft PowerAutomate. If a Divisional exception is approved, the approval PDF should be uploaded to the expense report, and the report may be resubmitted. If a Divisional exception is not pursued, or approved, the line(s) must be marked as “Personal”. For Purchasing Card transactions, the amount must then be repaid to UW-Madison; for Shared Liability Card transactions, the cardholder must pay U.S. Bank directly.
- 10 or more days have elapsed without a response from the claimant/Expense Data Entry Specialist regarding outstanding questions on the expense report.
- Expenses are claimed that require an updated remote work agreement to validate the headquarters location and an updated remote work agreement is not on file.
Contact information
Claimants, cardholders, Expense Data Entry Specialists, and departments may send questions on expense reports in process with the central audit team to the Expense Partner pool inbox expensepartnerpool@bussvc.wisc.edu.
If you have any questions, comments or feedback on the Workday Expenses centralized audit program, please reach out to Expense Reimbursement Program Manager Allie Watters at allie.watters@wisc.edu.