[Oct 2019]
Figuring mileage when employees travel on a workday:
You can either just factor the total mileage from work to the destination (not home to destination) or you can subtract the commute from home to the workplace from the overall mileage. If an employee travels after already returning from home for the day – you do not subtract “normal daily commute” from that additional trip.
Please check out this link for additional guidance when figuring mileage:
Mileage Best Practices
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[Sept 2019]
The below applies to OSU employees who have airfare purchased via CTP.
- If only a change fee of $200 is incurred that can be done via CTP or the airline. Submit expense as “Other” in the eTravel reimbursement if paid with personal card.
- If there is an increase in airfare in addition to the $200 change fee that has to be done via CTP regardless of payment method, and has to be submitted as “Airfare” to workflow for Travel office review if it was paid with personal card and reimbursement is requested.
- All Southwest changes have to be processed with CTP. Increase in fare on personal card needs to be submitted as “Airfare”.
For ease of communication to your travelers, the Travel office has advised to make all airfare changes with CTP and not the airline directly. As always, a business purpose should be listed for the change in eTravel for support of the expense.
[Sept 2019]
We recently were contacted about a traveler who utilized the personal scooters while on travel status. As this type of transportation can carry more liability in terms of accidents we reached out to the Travel office to verify if this expense was allowed. Below is the response:
“This is reimbursable under Transportation/Taxi.
Please note that this is not a recommended form of transportation for business purposes and may pose a risk for liability to the university if the traveler is injured why using during business travel. It would be assumed that the traveler is not bringing a helmet along for the business travel.”
When these are submitted please indicate the “To” and “From” (i.e. hotel to conference) as the receipts for those generally only indicate the duration of the trip and not the locations.
[July 2019]
In regards to combining leisure time with business. Flight comparisons “must” be obtained prior to the purchase of the combined airfare in order to capture the accurate differences in airfare.
[May 2019]
This is just quick tip guide for any miscellaneous travel expenses where receipts are not available under $50 per transaction. Any expense over $50 requires a receipt. If there is an incomplete receipt attached or just a credit card statement for one of these expenses you will be asked to remove them. Anything attached in eTravel is subject to audit review. Please add a comment there are no receipts available for the applicable expenses. If there are complete receipts available please attach those to the eTravel.
Follow what is listed in the OSU travel policy. Subway/Tube/Commuter train (BART, MTA) expenses can follow the below parameters, or “Ground Transportation”.
Please note that traditional rail expenses such as Amtrak or EuroRail require itemized receipts and are listed with airfare in the travel policy.
[May 2019]
Recently we attended a Travel workshop where it was announced student travel is exempt from the CTP requirement when they are travelling for academic purposes. This encompasses student non-employee travel as well as student employee travel. While it is not required to purchase airfare through CTP, it is strongly encouraged for duty of care purposes. This is not listed in the Travel FAQ on their webpage.
All employee airfare reimbursements automatically workflow to the Travel office for review. The Travel office requested the Units make a comment in the reimbursement indicating the travel is for a “student traveling for academic purposes” when applicable. This will avoid any infraction notices being sent out.
This initiative clarification ONLY applies to student travel. Faculty and staff are required to purchase airfare with CTP.