Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Revised Travel Policy

The University significantly altered its travel policy.



Please review the new travel policy.  It is altered from previous policy and from the policy that you may have seen on 30-day review.  Travel reimbursement policy is an area that changed significantly.  Obviously, this supersedes previous policies and practices in the college.  I encourage you to share these changes with all travelers, so people are not surprised by the much stronger approach to late reimbursement requests.  DJP

http://www.policy.umn.edu/Policies/Finance/Travel/TRAVEL.html

To quote in-part, emphasis mine:

"Travelers must provide adequate documentation to substantiate the travel, and must submit non-sponsored travel reimbursement requests within 60 days of the conclusion of travel. For travel on sponsored projects, travelers must submit travel reimbursement requests within 60 days of the conclusion of the trip or before the end date of the grant, depending on which deadline is sooner. Travelers must process expenses incurred near the end of the fiscal year in accordance with the year-end accounting calendar to ensure reporting in the correct accounting period.

Departments, colleges, campuses, and units may receive requests not meeting the requirements for documenting and requesting reimbursements in a timely manner.  Travel and expense reimbursement requests which are not adequately documented in accordance with Administrative Policy: Documenting Financial/Accounting Transactions, or are not submitted within 60 days, should be denied.  In rare circumstances, there may be travel reimbursements which cannot meet the requirements for adequate documentation or submission within 60 days, due to legitimate extenuating circumstances which impaired the traveler from meeting the requirements.  In those situations,after consultation between the traveler's unit and the Chief Financial Manager for the college or vice-presidential unit,  the reimbursement should be approved, and the rationale for determining that the circumstances warranted approving the request should be documented.

When travel reimbursement requests do not meet the requirements for documentation or timely submission, and there are no extenuating circumstances, but denial of the request would impose a financial hardship to the traveler, the reimbursement request may be approved as a taxable reimbursement to the traveler.  The amount of the taxable reimbursement should be reported to Payroll, for inclusion in the traveler's calendar year taxable compensation.  Additionally, these reimbursements may not be charged to sponsored projects, because they do not meet the University's policy requirements for documentation and timely submission.  Taxable reimbursements should be rare and infrequent, and should be approved only after consultation between financial management in the traveler's unit and the Chief Financial Manager for the college or vice-presidential unit."