Financial authorisations
A financial authorisation
- includes the right to read financial data;
- may include the right to sign financial transactions (e.g. signing contracts, paying invoices, placing orders) on behalf of ETH Zurich. The signatory authorisation is limited in amount;
- may be linked to an HR authorisation;
- always relates to a specific unit or financial element (e.g. department, professorship, a single cost center, etc.)
- applies to digital (ETHIS) and conventional transactions (paper).
The legal basis is the Financial Regulations, Chapter 2 and Chapter 3.
Financial authorisations are stored in ETHIS as roles that control access, read and approval rights. The prerequisite is the ETHIS basic authorisation, which every ETH Zurich employee receives.
1. Automatic assignment to functionaries
ETH Zurich functionaries (e.g. professors, heads of department, department controllers, members of the Executive Board, etc.) who are entered as such in the Organisational Database automatically receive the financial authorisation corresponding to their function and responsibility.
More details under Authorisations for functionaries.
2. Delegation
Persons with “higher” authorisations (Member of the Executive Board, Head of Department, Budget Officer) can delegate authorisations to employees (see table below) in order to reduce their checking and approval duties in day-to-day business. However, even after delegation, they retain responsibility for the correctness of all business transactions in their area. Delegations should only be made on the basis of operational necessity. The delegating person is responsible for the conscientious selection and instruction of delegates and for the deletion of delegations that are no longer required.
The principle of hierarchy applies to delegations: “Higher role delegates next lower role(s)”.
All delegations are made via ETHIS delegation workflow.
For more information on the scope of financial authorisations, see Academic units: Who signs what? and Service units: Who signs what?
Functionaries automatically receive standard authorisations for their respective area or unit. In certain cases, these authorisations can be increased by delegation.
Heads of institutes receive a Budget Officer authorisation at institute level. The head of the department can additionally delegate an authorisation for the institute as a whole (including access to all professorships at the institute).
Heads of service departements are given the Budget Officer authorisation. The responsible member of the Executive Board can additionally delegate the higher Head of Department authorisation.
Department controllers and budget coordinators are given the Departement Controller authorisation. This includes comprehensive reading rights (without spending approval) and, for department controllers, the right to shift reserves.
Heads of staff units do not receive authorisation by default, but can receive it individually by delegation.
S = sole signature, J = joint signature
* If one person holds both roles, the number of signatures is reduced accordingly.
For signatures under CHF 50,000 see Delegations by Budget Officers.
EB = Executive Board
S = single signature, J = joint signature
* If a person has both roles, the second signature is provided by the person with Deputy Head of Department authorisation..
** If a person has both roles, the second signature is provided by the Member of the Executive Board.
*** If a person has both roles, the number of approvals is reduced accordingly.
For signatures under CHF 50,000, see Delegation by Budget Officers.
Persons with Budget Officer authorisation can delegate the following financial authorisations:
* Exclusively for purchases via ETHIS procurement platform.
Deputy Budget Officer. Deputies have the same rights as the Budget Officer, with the following exceptions: they are not the supervisor, cannot sign for their own expenses and cannot delegate authorisations. The Budget Officer retains overall responsibility. The Deputy authorisation can only be delegated to employees with a function level of 9 or higher. It is recommended that reciprocal deputizing be arranged with other Budget Officers (e.g. with another professor from the same department). For auditing reasons, accumulations of deputizations for one person are to be avoided.
Authorisations with HR components (BM_HR, BA_HR, SP_HR) include: Read access to HR data (function level, contract duration, salary, contract, application documents); triggering HR workflows; recording hourly wage payments in ETHIS; evaluating and correcting ETHIS time management for employees; information on the expiry of temporary appointments. They can only be awarded for the entire resonsibility centre, not for individual financial elements.
Persons with the HR authorisation "Supervisor" also have read access to HR data. This authorisation can be delegated by the Budget Officer via the HR department (not via workflow).
Restrictions on allocation apply to authorisations with spending authority: BVS 1 x (to responsibility centre), BA 1 x (to responsibility centre or financial element), BA 2 x (to responsibility centre or financial element). The delegation workflow shows the corresponding restrictions.
All delegations are to be made via ETHIS delegation workflow.
All delegations are made via the ETHIS delegation workflow: ETHIS > Persönlich > Berechtigungen > Berichtigungen & Delegationen.
What should be considered?
- Persons who hold several roles (e.g. members of the Executive Board) or roles in different units must consider in which role they make a delegation. The ETHIS delegation workflow provides assistance.
- For each delegation, it is necessary to determine which financial element it should apply to: the responsibility centre as a whole (cost center and all SAP projects with their PSP elements), cost center, SAP project, individual PSP element?
Tip: Delegate an authorisation for the entire responsibility centre if possible. The person to whom the authorisation is delegated receives a uniform authorisation for all financial elements of the responsibility centre with one single transaction - including for all elements that are added later (e.g. for projects). If employees change, the delegation only has to be changed once.
Instructions on the workflow can be found in the ETHIS Help.
All ETH Zurich employees receive the basic authorisation "ETHIS User". This enables them to:
- Use time management
- View and correct personal data
- View employment and salary
- Claim business expenses
- View inventory database (only devices and contact person, no locations)
New employees can generate the basic authorisation themselves by logging into the ETHIS portal with their nethz login. The ETHIS basic authorisation is then activated the following day.