ERS Frequently asked questions
The ERS is available to all active Queen’s University faculty, staff members and students.
Please refer to the ERS First Time User Guide.
Please refer to the below list of emails and select the one that best fits with your question. Please also refer to the Travel & Expense Reimbursements page on the Financial Services website for more information and resources.
- Account codes (chartfields) and approvers: please contact your department
- ERS and Policy questions: expenses@queensu.ca
- Travel Card (TCard) Questions: creditcards@queensu.ca
- Approver status changes: Anthony Boese at ajb19@queensu.ca
- Expense Eligibility on a Research project: research.accounting@queensu.ca
If you need approval status, please fill out the ERS Approver Change Form, have appropriate individual approve and scan to ajb19@queensu.ca. The form can be found: Forms | Financial Services (queensu.ca)
One-over-one approval is required for all expense reimbursements as per the Travel and Expense Reimbursement Policy. Approvers must have signing authority for the department, research project, or fund, if different from the individual exercising one up approval. Approvers are ERS users who have staff reporting to them and/or are required to review and approve claims in ERS.
Approvers are strongly recommended to review the Travel and Expense Reimbursement Policy and the Hospitality Policy. Training is not required, however it is available upon request and there is an ERS Approver Checklist guide on the Financial Services website.
Delegates are employees who are allowed to perform work on behalf of other employees. In the ERS, by assigning permission to a delegate, you are allowing the delegate the ability can create claims, submit requests, expense reports and track claims on your behalf, depending on what access you grant. To delegate approval the delegate must also be an approver.
To add delegate please follow directions included in the ERS First Time User Guide.
Please Note: Claimant responsibilities cannot be delegated. By establishing a delegate, you provide the delegate with access and consent to view all information in your “My Profile” page.
Once you have received payment for your ERS claim, you must safely dispose of all receipts and supporting documentation. There will be an electronic record in ERS of your claim and supporting documentation.
Please contact your department for information about who can approve your claim.
One-over-one approval is required for all expense reimbursements as per the Travel and Expense Reimbursement Policy. Approvers must have signing authority for the department, research project, or fund, if different from the individual exercising one up approval.
- Go to www.queensu.ca
- Select the red “Search and Sign In” button in the top right corner
- Select “MyQueen’sU - SOLUS, MyHR and More”
- Scroll down to the “Finance Applications”
- Select the “Expense Reimbursement (ERS)” link
- A drop down will open, select the “Log into the ERS” link.
- You may have to enter in your credentials, or you will be taken to the main ERS page.
Chartfields are information fields used to provide the university’s financial system with the basic structure to segregate and categorize transactional and budget data. In the ERS, this is where your claim will be coded. Please contact your department to obtain the chartfield(s) you should be using on your expense claims. In the ERS a fund, department and project are mandatory, programs and classes may also be used. More information about Chartfields can be found here
Business class is considered an exception to the policy and requires written pre-approval as per the Exceptions section of the Travel and Expense Reimbursement Policy found here.
A business meal is a meal where individuals from outside the University are in attendance. A reasonable expense is deemed to be based on sound judgement and moderation. An example of a business meal is a lunch with a visiting professor or speaker in attendance. Business meals fall under the Hospitality Policy. Please refer to the Hospitality Policy for more information.
Meals where only University Faculty, Staff and Students are in attendance requires pre-approval as per the Hospitality Policy found here.
Provision of coffee or snacks for an in-house departmental meeting or educational session is at the department’s discretion but must be a reasonable amount and request.
The Hospitality Policy “applies to the reimbursement of all entertainment expenses from all funding sources including operating, research, ancillary, capital or trust.” Entertainment can be for internal or external attendees.
Third Party payments refer to a payment made for a service provided and an invoice is given. This includes catering, publishing fees, translation fees, honorariums and speaker fees/gifts that would be given.
Queen’s employees and students should not personally pay for Queen’s related Third Party Payments and will be denied reimbursement through the ERS.
Please either use the PCard (if it applies) or have the Third Party service provider issue an invoice for payment to be processed through acQuire.
Office Furniture must be purchased from a Vendor of Record (VOR) in AcQuire. Queen’s University has standards for what can be used on Campus and in home offices, the VORs in AcQuire meet these standards. Because of this there are no exceptions. Please refer to the Furniture section on Strategic Procurement Services Website for more information.
Cash advance requests are only issued when a department or individual Travel Card (TCard) cannot be used. If a TCard can be used, then the advance will be rejected. If a TCard cannot be used, please ensure that a note is added to the request explaining this in addition to the purpose of the cash advance.
For student travel please contact creditcards@queensu.ca to see if you qualify for a declining balance credit card.
A Cash Advance request is to be used primarily for travel when all other options, including using a TCard are unavailable.
Participant Advances are to be used to pay Research Participants. An example of this would be a Research project with a study on allergies. Participants in the study would be paid a small amount for participating in the study. The Principal Investigator (PI) would request a Participant Advance and then allocate and keep track of the monies accordingly.
- Open ERS
- Under the Expense Page on the right side of the page you will see “View: Active Reports”
- Click on Active Reports
- Select the appropriate time frame. If it was recently submitted select “Last 90 days”
- Claims submitted or currently in process will be shown.
A manual claim (previously known as a paper claim) is only to be used for visitors or those who do not have access to the ERS. A manual (paper) claim will be returned if it is submitted and the claimant has access to the ERS.
For those who do not have access to the ERS, manual (paper) claims are to be scanned and emailed to expenses@queensu.ca.
All claims are processed within 15 business days. This is the service standard set in the Travel and Expense Reimbursement Policy.
We ask that you not submit inquiries about the status of a claim until 15 business days have passed.
If the claim is complete with correct supporting documentation and approvals and there are no other issues, the claim will be processed for payment within 15 business days. If there are omissions or errors, the claim will take more time than 15 business days to be processed for payment.
Expense claims processed through the ERS are paid via EFT. This means that you must update your Canadian bank account information and Canadian mailing address information in MyHR and SOLUS.
If you do not have a Canadian bank account and/or Canadian mailing address, please reach out to expenses@queensu.ca.
If you have not updated your banking information and mailing address, you will not get paid.
Yes! There is a Mobile App that is supported on Android or iPhones and can be accessed 24/7! Please find more information here.