Financial authorisations
The gradation and allocation of authorisations is governed by the ETH Zurich Financial Regulations, Chap. 3.
Employees should only receive financial authorisations to the extent necessary to fulfil their duties. Duties, responsibilities and competencies should be in line with each other.
A financial authorisation
- includes at least reading rights for financial data;
- may also include a signatory right for financial transactions on behalf of ETH Zurich (e.g. signing contracts, paying invoices, placing orders) up to a limited amount;
- may be coupled with an HR authorisation;
- always refers to a specific unit or financial element (e.g. department, responsibility centre of a professorship, cost centre, etc.).
A financial authorisation is stored in ETHIS as a role for controlling access, reading and approval rights. The prerequisite is an ETHIS account provided for every employee of ETH Zurich. - Generally, a financial authorisation applies to all transactions regardless of whether they are processed via ETHIS or via conventional processes (paper, e-mail).
The most frequently asked questions and answers regarding financial authorizations can be found in our FAQ.
All employees of ETH Zurich are entitled to an ETHIS account with the following basic rights:
- Time management
- Personal data
- Employment & salary
- Business expenses
- Inventory database (only the devices and the contact person are visible, i.e. no location view of the devices)
Employees who do not yet have an ETHIS account can open one by logging into ETHIS with their nethz login. An account will then be automatically generated and activated the next day.
Automatic assignment when taking over a function. Functionaries of ETH Zurich who are listed in the Organisational Database will automatically receive the financial authorisation corresponding to their function. - See below: Financial authorisations for functionaries.
Delegation of an authorisation. Persons with the authorisation "Budget Officer", "Head of Department ", "Deputy Head of Department" or "Member of the Executive Board" can delegate authorisations. All delegations take place via ETHIS delegation workflow (ETHIS > Persönlich > Berechtigungen > ETHIS Berechtigungen). - See below: Delegation by Members of Executive Board and Heads of Department, Delegation by Budget Officers.
Functionaries
The following are considered functionaries: Executive Board members, heads of academic and service departments, professors, heads of competence centres, heads of non-departmental teaching and research facilities, heads of staff units as well as coordinators or controllers of departments, and budget coordinators of an Executive Board domain. (Financial Regulations, Chap. 2)
Authorisations for functionaries
1 Including own expenses. / 2 FR Art. 40. The Executive Board decides on the permanent appointment of academic staff (FR Art. 39). / 3 The BERVER or RV acts as countersignatory for applications for permanent appointment in his or her area. If he/she is the applicant for the appointment, he/she is authorised to sign individually. (FR Art. 40 para. 2).
Allocation of authorisations for functionaries
Authorisations are assigned automatically if the functionary is registered with the General Secretariat and entered accordingly in the Organisational Database (e.g. as head of department). In a few exceptions, function holders receive an authorisation by delegation.
* Heads of institutes automatically receive the authorisation "Budget Officer" for the responsibility centre of the institute. An additional, more extensive authorisation for the institute as a whole (including insight into all professorships of the institute) can be delegated by the head of the academic department. - See below: Delegation by Members of Executive Board and Heads of Department.
** Heads of a service department receive "Budget Officer" as a basic authorisation. Additionally, the responsible Executive Board member may delegate the authorisation "Head of Department ". - See below: Delegation by Members of Executive Board and Heads of Department.
1 Alignment with operational necessity
Authorisation shall only be given where needed to fulfill tasks. The delegator is responsible for conscientious selection and instruction of the delegates. Information on the scope of the individual authorisations is given in FR chapter 3. An overview of already existing delegations can be found under ETHIS > Persönlich > Berechtigungen.
2 Gradation
A person with a superior authorisation may delegate authorisations of the next lower level:
* The Vice President for Finance and Controlling (VPFC) is automatically informed / ** The delegation must be approved by the VPFC; the approval process is automatically initiated by the ETHIS workflow.
3 All delegations are assigned via ETHIS delegation workflow.
You will find the workflow under ETHIS > Persönlich > Berechtigungen > ETHIS Berechtigungen. If you have multiple roles, you may need to consider at which level (in which role) you want to delegate; the workflow provides guidance on this. You will find instructions and best-practice examples in the ETHIS Help.
Persons with a role “Member of Executive Board” or “Head of Department” may delegate as follows:
* When delegating a BERVER, it is strongly recommended to also delegate a BERVERS. / **VB = a single responsibility centre (e.g. a professorship), T-VB = a bundle of responsibility centres (e.g. a department).
Persons with several authorisations or authorisations in different responsibility centres (e.g. Executive Board members, heads of department) must be aware in which role they make a delegation; the ETHIS delegation workflow provides assistance.
Option: Superordinate authorisation for heads of institute
Heads of institutes automatically receive the authorisation "Budget Officer" for the institute's responsibility centre (e.g. VB 12244). If the head of institute exercises a management function and accordingly is to have superordinate insight into all units of the institute, the head of department can additionally delegate a “Budget Officer” authorisation on the “T-VB” of the institute (e.g. T2244).
Budget Officers may delegate the following authorisations.
Persons with a “Budget Officer” role in different responsibility centres must be aware in which role they make a delegation; the ETHIS delegation workflow provides assistance.
Appointing a Deputy Budget Officer
To ensure that business can continue seamlessly, the Budget Officer can appoint a deputy. In principle, this person has the same rights as the Budget Officer, but they are not automatically Supervisors, they cannot sign for their own business expenses and they cannot delegate authorisations. Overall responsibility remains with the Budget Officer.
The wide-ranging “Deputy Budget Officer” (BVS) authorisation can only be given to employees with a functional level of 9 or higher. If there are no such staff available in an academic unit, it is recommended that a reciprocal deputy system is agreed with another professor or that a budget manager is appointed for the whole responsibility centre. For audit reasons, one person should not be appointed as deputy for a large number of people; this is because they would have excessive signing authorities.
Setting the scope of the delegation
In each case of delegation, it is necessary to determine for which financial element it applies:
- Responsibility centre as a whole (cost centre and all SAP projects with their PSP elements)
- Cost centre
- SAP projects incl. all its PSP elements
- Individual PSP element.
The option to grant an authorisation for the entire responsibility centre facilitates the process of assigning authorisations. In this way, for example, the administrative assistant for a unit can receive the same authorisation for all the financial elements in the responsibility centre by means of a single delegation. Further advantage: The delegation also applies automatically to all SAP-projects and PSP elements that will be opened in the future.
The following authorisations can only be granted for entire responsibility centres: Deputy Budget Officer (BVS), Budget Manager including HR rights (BM_HR), Budget Assistant including HR rights (BA_HR), Supporter including HR rights (SP_HR), Shopper (EKI).
Instructions on how to delegate authorisations via ETHIS can be found in the ETHIS Help.