Need a suggestion for setting up a reimbursement program with an annual cap

Question

Can anyone recommend or have an idea on the best way to handle an employee program which provides for $250 in reimbursements for eligible expenses under the program? A few facts about the program:
1- There is an annual $250 cap per employee
2- The $250 does not need to be used all at once
3- Employee's pay for services themselves first and then submit receipts to HR on a quarterly basis for reimbursement
3- Because expenses do not need to be used all at once, the set up must be able to track expenses for the entire year through a cumulative balance
4- The $250 is subject to payroll taxes (though we are not using Oracle Payroll)
Currently, the entire program is being managed via an excel spreadsheet but we would like to automate the program in Oracle. Ideally, we would like for employees to enter their expenses via Oracle iExpense. However, the system would need to be be able to recognize when an employee is over the annual limit, throw a message to the employee letting them know they are over the annual cap, and only allow the remaining balance to be processed in the expense report.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
Barbara

Answer 1

Hmm, if you are not using Oracle Payroll, what are you using for payroll? I am wondering why you could not use your payroll system, whatever it is, to handle this reimbursement program.
Well, you may want to talk to Oracle support about how to handle this in Oracle iExpense. You can certainly handle advances for Expense Reports. You would then apply the advance to the expense report items. The catch is I don't think you can stop expense item entry after the adavance is satisfied. You would have to set up a work flow process of some kind to have the expense reports reviewed and only approve expenses that are applied to the advance, is what I am thinking. Not your ideal solution, but something to think about. It could be the Oracle folks might know of a sneaky way to handle this. What you are trying to do is unusual. Employee advances are common, but the idea of not being able to exceed the advance amount is what unusual about this. Normally you will accept any expenses over the advance amount and reimburse the employee for those extra amounts not advanced.
Good luck.
John Dickey