Individuals traveling internationally are required by UT travel policy to have an approved Request to Travel. See University fiscal policy FI0705 - Travel. The approved request gives the traveler permission to travel on university business. After the request is approved, the request and related expense report can be linked in either of two ways.
NOTE: The traveler should have the travel request created and approved before taking the trip.
Approved travel requests will remain in the Active view of requests until they are 90 days past the specified trip end date. Requests that are greater than 90 days past the trip end date can be found under the view for Approved Requests. These can be linked to from an expense report. Approved requests stay active for 180 days past the end date of the trip. After that time, the system will automatically close the request, and they can no longer be linked to an expense report.If an expense report needs to be filed for a request more than 180 days from the trip end date, a new request must be created and approved. Contact travel support at travel@tennessee.edu for specifics of creating this type of request.
There are two methods of linking a travel request and an expense report. The first method is to start from the request and create the expense report from there. This will bring the request header information over into the expense report, so it does not have to be re-entered. The second method is to start from the expense report and link back to the request.
Expense Report Created from an Approved Request
After the travel request is approved, an expense report can be created directly from the request. Click on Requests and to go to the Manage Requests screen. All active and approved requests will be displayed.
Select and open the approved request for which the expense report is to be created.
Click Create Expense Report. The report header information will be copied from the request into the expense report. The expense report will be connected to the request, as indicated in the box below.
NOTE: The estimated expenses are not copied over to the expense report. The actual expenses must be entered on the expense report.
Once the expense report has been created, certain header information can be modified if needed without impacting the request. For example, the dates of the trip or the fund(s) charged might have been changed since the request was approved. However, changes to the business purpose or trip type require a new request.
Linking from an Established Expense Report
If the expense report is created first and needs to be linked to an approved travel request, this can be done from the expense report. From the open expense report and click on Report Details > Manage Requests.
Active and approved requests will be listed. Select the appropriate approved request and click Add to Report. More than one request can be linked to a report, but they must be linked in separate actions. Also, approved requests can be linked to more than one report, if necessary. Click Close to return to the report.
The expense report is now linked to the request.
Linking to a Request with an End Date over 180 days in the past
All requests are automatically closed by Concur 180 days after the end date of the trip, and it is not possible to link to a closed request. If an expense report needs to be linked to a request with an end date over 180 days in the past and a new travel request is created for that same time period, that new request will immediately be closed. A workaround hs be devised to address this situation:
- Create a PDF of the original approved request to attach to the new request.
- If there is not a previous request, please include detailed comments reflecting the scenario.
- Create a new request or copy the previous request; however, change the travel start and end dates to today.
- Include the actual travel dates in the comments field on the request header tab and note the previous request is attached.
- Once the header tab is saved, the Attachments button will become available to upload the original request PDF.
- Once approved and linked to the expense report, be sure to include detailed comments at the report header reflecting this scenario. You may also wish to attach the original approved request to the expense report. This can be done at an appropriate expense item level to ensure the attachment posts to IRIS.
- The traveler may receive an informational alert concerning the request dates differ from the expense report header. This will not prevent the traveler from submitting.
If you have questions or need additional assistance utilizing the University’s travel system, please contact travel@tennessee.edu.