Purpose and Use of the Travel Allowance
When traveling involves either lodging or meals per diem, an expense report travel allowance is required. Its function is to manage the following portions of the Expense Report:
- Trip destination(s)/itinerary
- Meal per diem rates and adjustments
- Lodging CONUS/OCONUS rates
- The Use Percent Rule indicator to allow lodging up to 150% of CONUS/OCONUS rates
A travel allowance is required for any expense report that is claiming lodging or meals per diem. This applies when the expense type Lodging is used. A travel allowance is not required for Lodging Group or Lodging Centrally Held Card expenses and should not be included. A travel allowance is only needed for a one-day trip if the trip lasts longer than 12 hours and the traveler claims meals.
NOTE: Unless a travel allowance is required, it is recommended NOT to create one. This prevents issues later if meals or lodging do need to be claimed for the trip.
Onboarding Process
When using a travel allowance, it is recommended to create the travel allowance when entering the header information. Scroll to the bottom of the header and select “Yes, I require a Travel Allowance”.
If the travel allowance is not created when the expense report is first created, it can be added later to the existing expense report. From Manage Travel Allowance, click Create New Itinerary.
Creation of Travel Allowance
All travel allowances must have at least two rows: one for the destination of the trip and one for the return. This is also true for a one-day trip. If there are multiple destinations, an entry is required for each of those. The travel allowance/itinerary is used to determine the CONUS/OCONUS per diems for each day of the trip. The destination for a multi-day trip is the location of the hotel, not necessarily the place where the business is conducted.
The steps for adding the itinerary are:
1) Begin typing the name of the city from which you are leaving in the Departure City field. Select the city from the dropdown list. Concur does not allow direct entry, but the city must be selected from the dropdown. Next, enter the Arrival City.
2) Enter the date and time of your departure. This entry is the information about the day the trips begins. Concur will default the arrival city date from the departure city date.
3) The first leg of the itinerary has been created. Click Save.
4) On the following screen, enter the same information for the return trip and for any intervening destinations. For every leg after the first, Concur will automatically populate the departure and arrival city fields. Edit those fields as necessary for each additional itinerary leg, remembering to enter dates and times for each arrival and departure.
The completed itinerary will have a row for the first and last days and for every destination in between.
After entering all the legs of the trip, click Next to go to the Expenses & Adjustments tab. On this screen, check the boxes for any meals that are provided. These meals will be deducted from those days per diem. The reimbursement amount will be displayed on the right side of the screen.
On the Expenses & Adjustments tab, the column Use Percent Rule applies to the lodging per diem. It is recommended to check this box for each day of the trip. Checking Use Percent Rule will generate the allowable reimbursement amount at 150% CONUS/OCONUS rate instead of the actual per diem. Normally, the CONUS rate for Seattle is $232. In the example below, because the Use Percent Rule was checked, the system generated the Allowance Limit as $348 ($232 * 1.5). This is the rate that will be used by the system to compare to the nightly rate on the lodging expense.
After completing the itinerary and the expenses and adjustments, click Create Expenses. This will return you to the expense report with the meals per diem entries created.
If you have questions or need additional assistance utilizing the University’s travel system, please contact travel@tennessee.edu.