SECTION OVERVIEW AND POLICIES

Expense reports must be certified by the employee requesting reimbursement. Expense reports must also be reviewed by the employee’s supervisor and an agency Finance Office employee that can certify that the expense report is just, true and correct and, therefore, appropriate to pay. An employee’s supervisor and the Finance Office employees should not certify an expense report unless it includes sufficient, appropriate evidence to support the expenses claimed, and both the supervisor and Finance Office employee have reviewed the support to be able to certify the expenses are appropriate.

This section describes the process that must be followed for expense reports that are direct-entered into the Statewide Financial System (SFS) or bulkloaded from an agency’s internal finance or travel system. Employees must follow these processes whether the expense report results in (i) a reimbursement to the employee, (ii) no reimbursement to the employee or the State, or (iii) a reimbursement from the employee to the State.

For information on Finance Office certification requirements see Chapter XII, Section 4.B – Certification of Vouchers of this Guide.

Process and Transaction Preparation:

Employees are required to certify the expenses on expense reports are just, true and correct and, therefore, appropriate to pay. To meet this requirement, employees may, in either the SFS or an agency’s internal finance or travel system:

• Directly enter into the SFS and certify expenses on an expense report;
• Review the information that a proxy has entered in an expense report in SFS, and when the employee has confidence the expenses on the expense report are appropriate, submit the expense report in SFS using the employee’s own SFS log in credentials; or
• Sign the certification on a completed Employee Report of Travel Expenses and Claim for Payment (AC 132-S*). This document can either be provided to a proxy for processing in SFS, or submitted through the proper supervisory chain to the finance or travel unit following the agency’s internal procedures. If this process is used to record the employee’s certification, an online agency must attach the signed Claim for Payment to the expense report. Bulkload agencies are required to keep these forms in a central location, such as the Finance Office, and provide them to the Comptroller upon request.

A proxy may not submit an employee’s expense report for approval without having received the employee’s certification.

* Agencies may use a form other than the AC 132-S to record and certify employee expenses only when the form has been approved by OSC. To request approval for an alternate form, please submit the form to [email protected].

Guide to Financial Operations

REV. 07/09/2026