Workday for Finance
This page is for those with Finance security roles who initiate or approve Workday tasks and need to understand the following key Workday concepts:
- Budgeting and accounting
- Banking and settlement
- Travel and expenses
- Procurement
- Grants management
- Assets management
Examples of Finance security roles include Cost Center Managers, Area Finance Officers, Grant Managers, Accountants, Effort Certification Reviewers, Expense Data Entry Specialists, and Procurement Card Data Entry Specialists.
As announced on March 26, 2025, the university will implement a variety of strategic pauses to hiring, travel, purchasing, and more as a measure to reduce spending. Below are Workday resources and additional helpful information related to these measures:
Workday reference guides:
- Request an Exemption from the Reclassification and Out-of-cycle Salary Increase Strategic Pause
- Request an Exemption from the Recruitment and Hiring Strategic Pause
- Request or Review an Exemption from the Procurement and Travel Strategic Reduction
To prepare for the questionnaire in Workday, it is recommended to download the strategic reduction/pause questions in a Word doc. These questions are available in the reference guides above.
The following guides contain the instructions specific for the Freeze Executive – Dean, Chancellor, VP and Freeze Executive – EVP roles:
Strategic Pause FAQs:
Additional resources:
Please use the following Workday Service Desk ticket types to submit questions or concerns:
Essentials for Finance
The following resources provide guidance for important Finance concepts, such as…
The following resources help you understand foundational Finance concepts such as requesting FDM Elements, primary accounting functions, financial terminology, where to find spend category guidance, and get answers to common finance questions…
- Understand how to request FDM elements such as a new cost center or program.
- Review the primary accounting functions in Workday explainer with examples and helpful links.
- To review the latest Spend Category guidance, run the CR REF Spend Categories report in Workday
- Learn about the Foundation Data Model – also known as the FDM
To learn how to navigate your My Tasks inbox and get Tips & Tricks to help you keep your My Tasks clean, visit the Workday Essentials page.
Common Financial terms used in Workday
Understand the differences between the following financial terms used in Workday.
- Core and Non-Core budgets
- Commitments, Obligations, and Encumbrances
- Endowed Gifts and Current Use Gifts
For Debits and Credits, a general description is, a debit decreases the normal balance and a credit increases it.
For specific definitions based on the financial activity, review the relevant guide for that process. For example, in Accounting Journals:
- A Debit increases the balance in an Expense ledger account (e.g., JV91 in legacy) and decreases the balance in a Revenue ledger account (e.g., JV22 in legacy).
- A Credit decreases the balance in an Expense ledger account (e.g., JV92 in legacy) and increases the balance in a Revenue ledger account (e.g., JV21 in legacy).
For more Workday definitions, visit the Workday Glossary.
Finance FAQs
Watch this Finance FAQs Elevating Cougs replay for answers to common HCM questions.
Finance FAQs Recording
Questions answered include:
- Who is responsible for making payments on travel?
- Rather than develop Excel spreadsheets for manually tracking the various accounts in my department, what Workday reports can I run instead?
- How do commitments and obligations work?
- How do I check the status of an invoice such as has it been issued, paid, or if we are past due?
The following resources help you understand important, repeating Finance events and how and when to take action on them in Workday…
- Learn about important Finance Dates in Workday such as Operational Transaction dates, Accounting dates, and Budget dates.
- Learn best practices and tips and tricks to make the Finance events that repeat every paylock, semester, or fiscal year efficient and accurate.
- Watch the Calendar Planning and Best Practices for Key Events in Workday Elevating Cougs session.
- Find when the previous accounting period has closed.
Fiscal Year End resources
- Review a list of Fiscal Year End Workday resources with important reports to run and reference guides for critical end of year actions in Workday.
- For approval and posting dates and detailed information about fiscal year end, visit the Fiscal Year End page on the General Accounting Website.
The following resources help you view where a business process routes and who the next approver is of an in-progress event in Workday…
- Find the next steps in an in-progress business process transaction.
The following resources help you submit a Delegation request:
- Submit a ticket to request a delegation when the faculty or staff member is unable to do so themselves
- Learn how delegations work in the Workday system.
For more about Delegations, visit Workday Essentials.
- Understand how Finance connects to HCM and Payroll in Workday with examples and easy to follow diagrams.
Visit the Workday Essentials page to learn more about essential concepts for all employees who initiate, review, or approve business processes, and to access relevant support and resources.
Managing Key Finance Events
The following resources help Finance process initiators and approvers manage key business processes and events in Workday…
CR FIN Sources and Uses Summary shows the Sources (Core Budgets and Revenues), Uses (Expenses, Commitments, and Obligations) and Balances (Sources minus Uses) associated with their worktags for time periods in a simple format.
- Review the report prompts, worktags, and column definitions in the Running CR FIN Sources and Uses Summary reference guide.
- Learn about the Cost Share Grant Balances in the CR FIN Sources and Uses Summary report.
The following resources help Accountants, Cost Center Managers, Accounting Managers, Budget Managers, and Program Managers learn how to create journals, submit budget amendments, and manage accounting adjustments…
- Learn how to create budget amendments and the related budget amendment types.
- Review the steps to create and approve a Journal – the guide includes information on Accounting Journals for Grants and a list of Journal Sources
- Understand how to to create an accounting adjustment to reclassify costs for an operational transaction in Workday
Payroll Accounting Adjustments
While we can’t eliminate the need for all Payroll Accounting Adjsutments (PAAs), understanding how to reduce the number of PAAs you need to run can help you prevent as many as possible and make them easier to complete and review.
- Learn how to create a payroll accounting adjustment
- Review costing allocation hierarchies and learn how to assign costing allocations
The following links help Expense Data Entry Specialists, Cost Center Managers, Grant Managers, Area Finance Officers, and others manage Expense Reports, Spend Auths, and PCard verifications…
- Learn how to create, approve, change, or close a Spend Authorization.
- Review the steps to create, approve, change, or cancel an Expense Report.
- Understand the business purpose definitions for Spend Authorizations and Expense Reports.
- Watch the Expense Report, Spend Authorization & PCard Elevating Cougs session to learn more.
- Learn how to verify procurement card transactions in Workday.
The following links help Cost Center Managers, Grant Managers, Departmental Buyers, and other buyers to create supplier requests, create purchase orders and requisitions…
- Learn how to initiate a request to add a new supplier (create Supplier Request) to Workday.
- Understand how to initiate and approve a supplier invoice request. Once the supplier invoice request is approved, it automatically routes to the Accounts Payable Data Entry Specialist to create the supplier invoice in Workday.
- Review the steps to create a Requisition for non-catalog and catalog items.
- Learn how to create a purchase order (PO), issue a PO, and process changes to a PO that has already been issued for goods or services
- Understand the CR REF Spend Categories report in Workday with the Spend Category Guidance reference guide.
- Watch the Procure to Pay- Optimizing the Lifecycle of a Payment Replay session for best practices and tips & tricks for Procurement activities in Workday.
The following links help Customer Administrators, Account Receivables Specialists, Customer Billing Specialists, and Award Contract Specialists to request new customers, record cash sales, and request revenue refunds…
- Learn how how to initiate a request to add a new Customer.
- Review the steps to record a cash sale and deposit a cash sale at the Bursar’s Office
- Learn how to request a revenue refund.
The following links help Grant Managers, Principal Investigators, and Effort Certification Reviewers to manage their Grants in Workday…
Grants Forecasting Tool
Workday Adaptive Grants Forecasting in Adaptive Planning allows grant administrators and principal investigators to plan for anticipated expenditures such as salary, benefits, supplies, equipment, travel, etc.
- For Grant Managers: access, view, and add rows and data to the Grants Forecasting sheets in Adaptive planning.
- For Principal Investigators (PIs): access and view the Grants Forecasting sheets in Adaptive planning.
- Watch the Grants Forecasting in Adaptive Planning training video for more tips & tricks and use cases.
Effort Certification
- Learn how to certify effort in Workday
- Understand how to use the Effort Certification Work Area
- Review the steps to create a Pro Forma Effort Certification
Dashboards and other Grants management activities
- Learn how to use the GRA Principal Investigator Dashboard in Workday.
- Learn about the reports in the Award Budget to Actuals Dashboard in Workday.
- Find dates on Award headers in Workday and learn why Award dates are important in the Award Dates overview guide.
- The create a Sponsored Account request guide shares how to create and route Research Conference Account Requests (RCAR) and Sponsored Programs Activity Requests (SPAR).
- Learn how to code cost share transactions and approve cost share using a grant worktag.
- Create a request for an overdraft transfer to remove an overdraft from an Award.
- For ORSO: Review the steps for the Award Setup Integration
Watch the following videos for best practices and tips & tricks
- Reporting for PIs
- Reporting for Grant Managers
- Managing Your People Paid on Grants
- Salary Over the Cap
Grants Forecasting Tool in Adaptive Planning
Modernization is thrilled to announce that WSU has been named a finalist in the 2024 Workday North America Customer Awards, nominated by Deloitte for the development of the university’s innovative Adaptive Grants Forecasting tool.
What is the Grants Forecasting Tool?
Workday Adaptive Grants Forecasting is the first university-wide grants forecasting tool, enhancing support for research on a brand new level. The tool is intended to assist Grant Managers and Principal Investigators (PIs) across the WSU system in projecting future expenses and remaining balances on their grants.
Are you using it?
To learn how the Grants Forecasting Tool can make a positive difference to your grants management activities, contact Gerik Kimble, Modernization’s Executive Director for Finance.
For more information on how the tool review the resources above.
The following links help Area Financial Officers, Gift Managers, Professorship Partners, Academic Chair/Managers, and others involved in gifts and endowments…
- Watch the Gift Management Elevating Cougs session for an overview of Gifts administration.
- Understand the differences between Endowed Gifts and Current Use Gifts.
- Review Key Gift Terms.
- Learn how to use the CR ACA Named Professorship report in Workday.
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