Travel Expense Frequently Asked Questions

Expense Approver is defined as a Faculty or Professional Staff Member who is designated by a budget owner or financial administrator to approve business expenses, who is at a higher level in the organization than the traveler whose expenses are being approved.

You may utilize upgraded airfare when a flight leg will exceed five hours in duration. Rail or car service can be booked with prior written approval via an email or memo from the relevant Senior Vice President, Vice President, CFO, Chair or Dean of the applicable unit.

TERRs must be submitted within 60 days of the travel concluding. After 60 days, submitted and approved reimbursements will be considered taxable income. The exception is if you are being reimbursed with grant money.

In order for the correct account codes to populate, please click on the upper right side of the TERR form, either “Domestic Travel” or “Foreign Travel.” Once either is clicked, the account codes will populate.

Click or tab on to the top of the first column to select the date from the calendar that the mileage/expenses occurred. Dates are in MM/DD/YYYY format. After the date filters, tab through the fields to input the mileage, and the dollar amount will display.

The suggested browser for MAC users is Chrome and PC users is Firefox. You may experience issues with auto filling your expenses, saving and signing in PDF format if you do not use the suggested browser. If issues occur, please email travel@drexel.edu.

No. Commuting miles are still considered to be the distance you travel to work and home each day, no matter the method.

Best practice when traveling locally is to use the Drexel shuttle service whenever possible. If the shuttle does not meet your travel needs, it is expected of the traveler to use the most economical option allowable under the Business Travel Guidelines.

All submitted receipts must be copies of the originals and contain the vendor name, transaction date, itemized list of purchases, and the payment method used. For restaurant purchases, provide both the itemized receipt and the credit card receipt showing the payment and the tip if requested for reimbursement.

This form should be submitted with a Travel Expense Reimbursement Report when:

• the meal is local and necessary while conducting business with researchers, University guests, etc., per the Business Meals Guidelines; or
• the meal occurs while on business travel, and meal guests are paid for. This case would allow an exception to the $60/day meal spending limit while on business travel.

The form should be completed in its entirety, with all three signatures at the bottom. The form is not required for P-Card purchases; however, all of the details of the business meal must be included in the transaction notes (purpose, vendor details, meal attendees).

To ensure accurate currency conversions for the dates of purchase, please use the Currency Converter on oanda.com. Currency conversion should be done for each purchase representing each transaction date. Please print the results of your conversion and include it with the reimbursement form and detail receipts. If a traveler used a credit card for purchases, you can instead include a copy of the credit card statement showing the conversions. The statement must have the traveler’s name on it. Credit card transaction summary receipts are not accepted.

Since travel plans may change or get cancelled, Drexel does not process any travel reimbursement requests for trips that have not yet occurred, including reimbursements for registration fees, airfare, anticipated incidentals and hotel costs. Procurement Services highly encourages the use of a department or individual P-Card or Travel Card for these big-ticket items.

When using P-Card or Travel Card: As a tax-exempt charitable organization, it's our responsibility to use University funds in a prudent manner, which includes obtaining and using sales tax exemptions whenever possible. Employees may access sales tax exemption forms via DrexelOne (under the Employee tab) and can pull up and print the required form from their phone, hotel computer, etc. While sales tax amounts may be minor on an individual basis, in the aggregate, amounts saved can be substantial. For additional sales tax information, including a Sales Tax Reference Guide, which includes a matrix summarizing categories of goods and services and whether they are taxable in various states, please visit the Office of Tax Compliance website.

When using personal credit card: Tax exemption is not applicable when using your personal credit card, so it is highly recommended that employees use a P-Card (Travel card) when conducting Drexel business.

When booking the combined travel, you must obtain and print out the airfare quote for the business travel directly to and from the business location. Attach the printout of the quote and your receipt for your purchased ticket with the TERR. Additionally, extra hotel nights, meals, parking, etc., expenses outside of travel and conference dates will not be reimbursed.

Personal expenses of any nature are prohibited from being placed on a P-Card.

To be approved for a travel advance, you must:

• ensure that the amount requested is reasonable and only necessary for incidentals that cannot be prepaid or paid with a P-Card; and
• provide a copy of the trip itinerary including airfare receipt, hotel confirmation and trip budget, as well as any quotes or invoices that have been received.

Travel advances are offered only for faculty and professional staff and who will be traveling to locations outside of the Philadelphia metropolitan area and will need to make payments in cash. These instances are generally for international travel to remote locales that do not widely accept credit card payments. Approval is at the discretion of Procurement Services.

Each department should have a contingency plan for how to handle payment of any travel-related purchases in cases when a traveler doesn’t have a P-Card. If you still need to request a travel advance, justification of need should be demonstrated with appropriate documentation.

Travel advances are not for service providers, which must be paid via a Non-Catalog Order Form.

When an employee leaves who received a travel advance prior to their employment status changing, it is up to the signing Supervisor and/or Approver on the advance form to ensure it is still reconciled within the 60-day window from when the trip concluded.