Key Rules & Eligibility

• No Approval Power: Standard delegates cannot approve any expense reports or invoices.
• The Certification Loop: If a delegate creates and submits a report for you, the system automatically routes it back to your account first. You must digitally certify that the expenses are accurate before it travels to supervisors or fiscal administrators.
• Who is Eligible: Active VCU classified staff, faculty (adjunct, teaching, and administrative), hourly workers, graduate assistants, and postdocs have Emburse profiles and can serve as delegates. General students, student workers, and health system employees using generic roles do not have default profiles and are excluded.
• Notifications: Delegates receive identical email alerts regarding any rejections, line-item adjustments, or updates made to the reports they originally built for you.

How to Assign a Standard Delegate

1. Click your name in the upper-right corner of the Emburse Enterprise Dashboard and choose Account Settings.
2. Click Delegate Settings on the left-hand navigation pane.
3. Locate the My Delegates section and click the blue + (Add New Delegates) button.
4. Search for the employee by typing their name, email address, or VCU ID. Select their name and click save.
5. To remove access, simply click the X next to their name in your delegate list.

Key Rules & Guardrails

• New Approvals Only: Delegation is not retroactive. Your vacation delegate will only receive expense reports that hit your queue after the rule is enabled. Items sitting in your queue prior to activation must still be handled by you or escalated manually.
• The Self-Approval Block: To preserve clean fiscal audits, Emburse strictly blocks self-approval. If your assigned delegate submits their own personal expense report, the system bypasses the delegation rule entirely and climbs your regular reporting structure to find an alternative supervisor.
• System Limits: You may assign non-overlapping dates to distinct individuals if your department utilizes multi-leg coverage.
• Mobile Limitations: You can view, add, or delete your delegate from the mobile app, but delegates cannot approve expenses within the mobile application interface. They must complete approvals using the web dashboard or via interactive email links.

How to Assign an Approval Delegate

1. Go to your name in the top-right corner > Account Settings > Delegate Settings.
2. Locate the My Approval Delegate or Vacation Approver control segment below the standard delegate options.
3. Click the blue add button, find your replacement colleague via the search bar, select their profile, and establish the operational dates.
4. To cancel an active or upcoming delegation early, log back into your web dashboard, navigate to your list, and click the X to remove them.

• Purpose: This function allows specific administrative personnel to enter any user's profile across the organization—or within a strictly defined department—without requiring an individual user invitation.
• Departed Employees: Super delegates are primarily utilized by the Office of Procurement Services and specific departments to clear outstanding expense queues, close out old corporate card liabilities, or wrap up transactions for individuals who have officially separated from VCU.

• Pre-Approval Limitation: Activating a Vacation Approval Delegate does not automatically extend your permission to Travel Pre-Approvals. Your delegate will only receive pending Expense Reports in their queue.
• Email Notification Control: If you act as a delegate for multiple colleagues, you will receive automated email alerts for all of those users. Emburse does not allow you to selectively filter or opt out of delegate-related emails. Disabling them completely will also stop alerts for your own personal expenses.
• File Upload Constraints: When uploading receipt images on behalf of another user, ensure files are in PDF, JPG, or PNG formats. Single files cannot exceed 5 MB. If a receipt packet is larger, split the document into smaller sections before uploading.

• Contact Central Support: Reach out directly to the VCU Office of Procurement Services or submit a help ticket through the VCU Procurement Help Desk.
• Related Documentation: Review the VCU Emburse Navigation Guide for broader system tutorials, or check out the VCU Emburse Approver Guide for strict compliance checklists.