Business Expense Guidelines and Expense Reports

The Create Expense Report via Workday to be a summary of ALL expenses associated with the trip/conference/event and include information for who, what, where, when, and why. Travel reports are useful in planning budgets and comparing travel year-over-year.  Please review the Business Expense Guidelines for more detail. 

Pre-approvals

  • You will Create a Spend Authorization. In most cases, travel must be pre-approved.  Spend authorizations are used to obtain pre-approval for anticipated expenses.  For faculty of the College, please review online faculty travel procedures. Other departments should preview travel requests with their department manager or Dean.

How to Prepare the Travel Expense Voucher

  • In Workday, you will Create an Expense Report.
  • You will need to fill in areas with red asterisks. The memo field is where you will put in all detail pertaining to the trip or expenses. Where, when, and purpose of the trip or details pertaining to expenses you are submitting.
  • You will attach all receipts pertaining to expenses.
  • Expense Reports must be submitted within 60 days after conclusion of trip or purchase.
  • New Transportation Expense Report Fields FAQS

Receipts

  • All expenses require itemized receipts except meals and incidentals when traveling using the per diem reimbursement method. Please confirm your allowed per diem rate with your Dean, VP, or Provost before traveling.
  • Credit card receipts are to be submitted via creating an Expense Report. Your PNC credit card transactions are uploaded to Workday. You will code each transaction and attach all receipts.
  • Out-of-pocket paid receipts are attached with your Expense Report.
  • Itemization is required by the IRS (this is a big audit area). When entertaining a group, a list of food purchased is a better receipt than the summary credit card receipt. Please list the names of guests when multiple people are included in a lunch or dinner receipt.

Cars - rental cars and other

  • Mileage reimbursement is claimed when you use your personal vehicle. Gas receipts are reimbursed when you use a rental car.
  • The mileage reimbursement rate is $0.67 /mile.
  • If you need to reserve a rental car, call Enterprise and schedule. Make sure that you receive the W&L rates.
  • If you are flying out of Roanoke or Charlottesville, you can rent a car one-way through Enterprise. The option may save on parking expense or be more convenient.
  • During business hours, Enterprise will shuttle renter between W&L and the Enterprise card location.  Just call them and ask
  • Lexington Enterprise - (540)463-4679

Per Diem Rates

  • The University will use Per Diem rates for domestic travel effective Jan. 1, 2018.
  • Information about International Per Diem rate can be found on the Business Office web page under International Per Diem.  Allowable rates may vary depending on program budget, but may not exceed those noted in the Guidelines.

Advances

  • Consider using your University or personal credit card before requesting an advance for travel.
  • In Workday, you will need to create a Spend Authorization with Cash Advance. Once your request has been created and submitted, it will route to your manager for approval.
  • To reconcile the advance, create an Expense Report from the Spend Authorization with Cash Advance that was requested. Net the advance against the actual expenses for the trip or event.
  • If you spend less than requested advance, you will receive a notification that you owe the university once your expense report has been submitted.
  • If you spend more than requested advance, you will receive notification of approval for your expense report. You will be reimbursed the difference.
  • Expense reports for Spend Authorizations with Cash Advances must be submitted within 14 business days.