This page covers how to adjust, transfer, or manually record revenue or expenditures in Workday.
Workday is the system all Universities of Wisconsin universities use (as of July 7, 2025) to standardize and streamline finance, human resources, and research administration processes, including accounting, managing time off, completing payroll, and closing out research awards.
Financial Accounting Journal Types and Sources
Use this decision tree when determining what journal type and source should be used when making a manual entry in Workday:
View the Journal Type Decision Tree (PDF)
Journal types
Journal types are the method or business process used to account within workday. These can include Operational Journals (completed through different business processes in Workday), Accounting Adjustments, and Accounting Journals.
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Operational Journal
Completed through business processes. These can include journals from Payroll, Procurement, Expense Reports, and Customer Invoices. See business process pages and job aids for these types of transactions.
Accounting Adjustment
Expense adjustments that are entered within Workday to adjust paid supplier invoices, supplier invoice adjustments, expense reports, or procurement card transactions. This process directly links the original transaction with the adjustment made. This process cannot be used to split fund any transactions, update the spend category on an individual expense report, or transfer multiple operational transactions at the same time.
Accounting Journal
Manual journals that are recorded in Workday. These are typically used when the other types of journals are not able to be used. This process does not link to the original transaction the journal is being made for.
Journal sources
Journal sources identify the origin of a journal posted in Workday. In operational journals, such as payroll, procurement, expense reports, or customer invoices, the journal source is automatically generated. In manual journals, journal sources are user defined. Journal sources can be filtered on in Workday, to help analyze financial data.
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Operational Journal Sources
These depend on the business process that is run. Some examples include Payroll Payment or Payroll Accounting Adjustment (Payroll Operation), Purchase Order or Supplier Invoice (Procurement Operation), Expense Report or Expense Payment (Expense Report Operation), or Customer Invoice or Customer Payment (Customer Invoice Operation).
Non-Salary Cost Transfer
This journal source is used when processing non-salary cost transfers when an accounting adjustment cannot be used.
| Integration System | Security to Access Integration |
|---|---|
| FIN EIB: Manual Journal No Journal Source – (Approvals) Journal Source: Non_Salary_Cost_Transfer |
– Cost Center Accounting Specialist
– Accountant – Accounting Operations Lead |
Manual Journal – With Award Costs
This journal source is the standard to use when creating a manual journal and it is not a non-salary cost transfer or a revenue transfer on Ledger Account 9000.
| Integration System | Security to Access Integration |
|---|---|
| FIN EIB: Manual Journal No Journal Source – (Approvals) Journal Source: Manual_Journal_with_Award_Costs |
– Cost Center Accounting Specialist
– Accountant – Accounting Operations Lead |
Manual Journal – Transfer only
This journal source is used for operational revenue transfers where Ledger Account 9000 is used on both lines of the entry.
| Integration System | Security to Access Integration |
|---|---|
| FIN EIB: Manual Journal No Journal Source – (Approvals) Journal Source: Manual_Journal_Transfers_Only |
– Cost Center Accounting Specialist
– Accountant – Accounting Operations Lead |
UW-Madison Guidance Documents for Creating Journals in Workday
- Security Roles for Journal Business Processes
- Create Accounting Journal – UW-Madison Specific Job Aid
- Example EIB (all manual journals) with UW-Madison Specific Guidance
- Create Journal for Pre-Workday Payroll Accounting Adjustments – UW-Madison Specific Job Aid
- EIB (Pre-Workday Posted Payroll Adjustments) with UW-Madison Specific Guidance
UW-Madison Specific Forms/Questionnaires
- Pre-Workday Payroll Accounting Adjustment Memo
- Pre-Workday PAA Journal Less than 90 Days Questionnaire
- Pre-Workday PAA Journal Over 90 Days Questionnaire
- Non-Salary Accounting Journal Less than 90 Days Questionnaire
- Non-Salary Accounting Journal Over 90 Days Questionnaire
Workday Job Aids
Workday Reporting for Journals
- Trial Balance Report: Displays ledger accounts’ beginning balance, ending balance, debit, and credit amounts.
- Find Journal Lines – Flattened Report: Displays individual journal lines information such as worktags, debit amount, and credit amount.
- Financials by Organization (UW) Report: Displays current fund/budget balance by calculating actuals and grouping transactions by assets, liabilities + equity, revenue, and expenses.
- Find Supplier Invoice Report: Used to view all and locate specific supplier invoices.
- Find Expense Report: Used to view all and locate specific expense reports.
- Find Accounting Adjustments Report: used to view all and locate specific accounting adjustments.
- Payroll Accounting 360 (UW): Used to help reconcile payroll information into accounting periods.
- Payroll Accounting Lines Missing Driver Worktag (UW): Identifies payroll accounting journal lines that are missing a driver worktag.
- All Position Restrictions Costing Allocations by Company, Supervisory Org and Position (UW): This advanced report lists the position restriction costing. The report uses the Position Restrictions Costing Allocations data source.
- All Workers Costing Allocations: Lists all worker costing allocations.
- Trial Balance – Composite by Cost Center: View trial balance for a cost center or cost center hierarchy.
- Workers with Expired or Invalid Costing Allocations (UW): This report will be used by the user groups responsible for auditing payroll funding. It should contain a report of all active employees with expired or invalid costing allocation
More information can be found on the Universities of Wisconsin Data and Reporting web page (NetID login required).
Training
Historical (Pre-Workday) Reporting Systems
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Perceptive Content/ImageNow
Is used for a variety of reasons across campus. For Business Services it is used for workflow and storage of financial documents like payment requests and gift documentation. Many of the links in WISER are actually launching a web browser to this system.
WISER
WISER was the primary financial reporting tool used by UW System prior to the implementation of Workday. WISER houses UW financial information from prior to Fiscal Year 2026 (July 2025).
WISER is a read only tool, which means it only reports information; no information can be entered, changed, or updated through the portal.
Images of Payment Requests (invoices, PIRs, DPs) and Gift Documents are available through links in WISER. These links open in a different system called Perceptive Experience.
- WISER Access Authorization Form (also provides access to WISDM)
- Sign in to WISER
- UW System WISER Training Videos
Additional information and guides
- WISER Projects and Awards
- WISER APPO
- WISER Expenses
- WISER Departments
- WISER Payroll
- WISER Detailed Transactions
- WISER Tiles and Groups
- WISER Create My Projects and My Awards Collections
- WISER Create Project Search Tiles and Groups
- WISER vs WISDM Data
- Searching For Procurement Card Transactions
- Find Capital Equipment Assets Guide (PDF)
