The data you've provided outlines various process variants for handling declarations submitted by employees. The process involves multiple stages of approval, potential rejections, and resubmissions, culminating in the handling of payment requests. Below is an overview of the underlying process and its key components:

### Key Actors
- **EMPLOYEE**: The individual who submits the declaration.
- **ADMINISTRATION**: The department responsible for initial approval.
- **SUPERVISOR**: Higher authority who gives final approval.
- **BUDGET OWNER**: An additional approver specifically involved in cases requiring budget validation.
- **PRE_APPROVER**: An intermediary approver before final approval.

### Key States
- **Declaration SUBMITTED**: Initiated by the EMPLOYEE.
- **Declaration APPROVED**: Declared as acceptable by ADMINISTRATION, BUDGET OWNER, or PRE_APPROVER.
- **Declaration FINAL_APPROVED**: Final acceptance by SUPERVISOR.
- **Declaration REJECTED**: Declaration denied by ADMINISTRATION, SUPERVISOR, BUDGET OWNER, or PRE_APPROVER.
- **Request Payment**: Step where payment is requested following final approval.
- **Payment Handled**: Step indicating that the payment process is completed.
- **Declaration SAVED**: The declaration gets saved for future submission.

### General Process Flow
1. **Submission** - An EMPLOYEE submits a declaration.
2. **First Level Approval** - The declaration is reviewed and possibly approved or rejected by ADMINISTRATION.
3. **Intermediate Approvals** (if applicable) - The declaration may need further approval from a BUDGET OWNER or a PRE_APPROVER.
4. **Final Approval** - SUPERVISOR gives the final approval, sometimes involving multiple rounds of the above steps if the declaration is rejected and resubmitted.
5. **Payment Request** - After final approval, a payment request is initiated.
6. **Payment Handled** - The payment process is completed.

### Notable Points in the Data
1. **Approval and Rejection Variants**:
   - **Single-Pass Approval**: Direct progression from EMPLOYEE submission to ADMINISTRATION approval to supervisor's final approval and payment request (e.g., most frequent variant).
   - **Multiple Approval**: Involves approval by BUDGET OWNER along with other steps.
   - **Pre-Approvals**: In some cases, an additional pre-approver must approve the declaration before it reaches the SUPERVISOR.

2. **Rejections and Resubmissions**:
   - Variants detail cases where initial submissions are rejected at various stages (ADMINISTRATION, SUPERVISOR, BUDGET OWNER, PRE_APPROVER), necessitating revisions and resubmissions by EMPLOYEE.
   - Rejection often leads to re-submission by the EMPLOYEE and another round of approvals.

3. **Performance and Frequency**
   - Various process paths have different frequencies and performance times.
   - The most frequent process has relatively better performance metrics, indicating a smoother workflow.
   - Processes involving multiple rejections and resubmissions show significantly higher performance times, suggesting an elongated process.

4. **Edge Cases**:
   - There are some edge cases where the process includes repeated rejection-resubmission cycles by ADMINISTRATION or multiple layers of approvals (e.g., declarations rejected by both ADMINISTRATION and BUDGET OWNER before being finally approved).

5. **Special Cases**:
   - Instances of declarations being saved but not submitted, indicating the declaration might be incomplete or intended for submission at a later time.
   - DECLARATION FINAL_APPROVED can sometimes experience subsequent rejections from unspecified steps, indicating potential audit or compliance checks even post final approval (seen with "REJECTED by MISSING").

### Summary
The process of handling employee declarations is multi-layered with various checks and balances involving multiple stakeholders. The typical workflow ranges from a straightforward single-submit-and-approve to complex scenarios of repeated rejections and resubmissions across different approvers before reaching final approval and payment stages. Performance times vary significantly across different paths, reflecting the complexity and efficiency of each process variant. The data highlight the necessity of a robust system to manage and streamline such workflows effectively.