Travel for work help

[Jalapeñomel]

So my DH has to travel to a conference, and he receives $$ as the department chair. No one has really used it for travel for many years, so he doesn't really know what the norm is, and I told him I'd crowdsource just for information. 

Anyway, he can either pay for his travel up front and then submit for reimbursement when he returns. Or he can apply for a voucher to get the funds before he leaves.  What would would you do? 

[rhian]

I'm in higher ed. Our standard is to pay for conference travel yourself and get it reimbursed. You can get the college to cover it but it's logistically more of a pain, and we can afford to front the money, so I just do it that way.

My partner works at a large corporation and has a corporate credit card for any business expenses. I wish higher ed would get on board with this rather than the reimbursement system!

[fernweh]

Not helpful but I would really base it on the employer.

When I travel for work I get reimbursed within a matter of days after I submit my report. Therefore I have no issues paying upfront and getting reimbursed.

H’s company on the other hand takes literal months to reimburse, so given the option I would apply for funds ahead of time.

If you don’t know how his employer is I’d be tempted to apply for funds ahead of the conference. My only hesitation is with that - how confident is he that he knows his expenses? For example if he estimates for a hotel it’ll be $150/ night and uses that amount when he applies for funding but then because of the conference the hotel raises rates to $200/ night would he have to cover the extra $50/ night out of pocket? Or is the amount adjustable?

[Stan]

I work for the government so my option is to submit for reimbursement except in very rare circumstances. This can often take a while, and while I do have a government travel card, it doesn't always work. If I had the option to get money ahead of time and wouldn't lose out on any money to do so and not have to submit receipts? Heck yes I'd do it ahead of time.

[plutosmoon]

He's at a college? Based on my interactions with higher Ed finance departments, getting reimbursed is always significantly easier than getting money up front. If you can swing the upfront cost, I'd go for reimbursement.

I'm in higher Ed and all the colleges I've worked at have always issued cards to salaried staff and faculty, seems I've been lucky in that regard.

[hbomdiggity]

I would pay for it out of pocket and submit for reimbursement. When I worked for a company that had us travel this way, I had a separate credit card that I used to make sure I submitted for everything and was paid.

Unless his work just pays a per diem, I don’t see a reason to do the voucher.

[followyourarrow]

Work has always paid for the conference fees upfront, and usually the flight, then I pay for the hotel and food and get reimbursed.

[Nonny]

I only ever traveled for work once, and didn't have a corporate card, so I paid for my expenses (gas, food) on my own and was reimbursed within a month. The hotel was booked by someone's admin up the chain, but I think I had to put my own down when I got there for the hold.

But this was a major corporation, and they had an incredibly smooth, streamlined process for the whole thing. Anyone who had any kind of regular corporate expense was issued a corporate card. I actually had one some years later, for non-travel related reasons, solely for digital purchases.

[keweenawlove]

I have jobs at a university and hospital and in both cases, I pay upfront and submit for reimbursement. Credit card rewards make it worthwhile.

[glw]

I'm also in higher ed and prefer to pay upfront and be reimbursed. That way I get credit card points and airline miles.

[Jalapeñomel]

Apr 3, 2024 12:14:13 GMT -5 rhian said:

I'm in higher ed. Our standard is to pay for conference travel yourself and get it reimbursed. You can get the college to cover it but it's logistically more of a pain, and we can afford to front the money, so I just do it that way.

My partner works at a large corporation and has a corporate credit card for any business expenses. I wish higher ed would get on board with this rather than the reimbursement system!

Apr 3, 2024 12:21:48 GMT -5 plutosmoon said:

He's at a college? Based on my interactions with higher Ed finance departments, getting reimbursed is always significantly easier than getting money up front. If you can swing the upfront cost, I'd go for reimbursement.

I'm in higher Ed and all the colleges I've worked at have always issued cards to salaried staff and faculty, seems I've been lucky in that regard.

If he wants to be paid up front, he'd have to submit at least 15 days ahead of time.  Both ways require him filing paperwork ahead of time, but the reimbursement requires him to submit all his receipts.  

We have to do food based on the government's travel website. 

[Jalapeñomel]

Apr 3, 2024 12:29:22 GMT -5 keweenawlove said:

I have jobs at a university and hospital and in both cases, I pay upfront and submit for reimbursement. Credit card rewards make it worthwhile.

Apr 3, 2024 12:32:23 GMT -5 glw said:

I'm also in higher ed and prefer to pay upfront and be reimbursed. That way I get credit card points and airline miles.

This was my initial thought as well...the credit card points might be worth the upfront expense.  

[wildrice]

Apr 3, 2024 12:40:30 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

Apr 3, 2024 12:29:22 GMT -5 keweenawlove said:

I have jobs at a university and hospital and in both cases, I pay upfront and submit for reimbursement. Credit card rewards make it worthwhile.

Apr 3, 2024 12:32:23 GMT -5 glw said:

I'm also in higher ed and prefer to pay upfront and be reimbursed. That way I get credit card points and airline miles.

This was my initial thought as well...the credit card points might be worth the upfront expense.  

This is also what I would do. I guess the one caveat is that I'd want to know about how long it takes to get reimbursed and how much this trip costs - if we're talking a couple of thousand and it could take 2 months to get paid back, I might be less inclined to front the money.

I handle professional development reimbursements for my org and the majority of people do pay for it themselves and get reimbursed. We have been trying to be more proactive in paying for things upfront instead because it can be a hardship to staff to have to front the money and we don't want them to have to choose between that and paying their rent or whatever. I'm glad both options are available at your H's employer!

[k3am]

I always have paid upfront and been reimbursed, but I work for a private company. For submitting receipts, I just snap a picture of everything using tiny scanner and email myself the digital copy to keep it all organized.

The credit card points make it worth it.

For some trips, I'll submit the hotel and airline as soon as I'm billed and the other trip expenses (mostly entertaining) after the trip so that I'm not fronting thousands on travel for a month or two.

[InBetweenDays]

I work for a large state university. I have to get travel pre-approved with my estimated costs. I then book everything myself (I prefer to do it that way so I can pick airlines, flight times, get airline miles, points, etc.) and then submit all my receipts (hotel, airline, transportation) and get reimbursed after the travel. We get a set per diem based on where we travel so I don't save receipts from meals.

Down side is you'll have to carry the flight cost until after the travel.

ETA: The University is very quick to reimburse once I submit everything. I usually have the money in my account within a week.

[sdlaura]

Private company and frequent travel. I have a company card but I don't use it because I want points/miles on my personal cards. I pay for travel myself and get reimbursed. If I were able to get a per diem I would probably take that so that I could keep whatever I didn't spend, though.

[litskispeciality]

This all depends on how long you can swing the balance on a credit card. My more recent higher ed travel I could reserve the hotel room on the school card (with pre-approval), but had to check out with my own card at the end of the conference. I paid for my food, gas and/or tolls on my own, then submitted all receipts and waited over a literal month to get everything back via a paper check. I'm sure there's a lot behind the scenes, but they never seemed to care how long it took to process (aka pay me for the interest I accrued.) I wasn't given a company card so I had no choice but to pay.

My current company has a system where you can submit for hotel and rental car through the company, but food is on your own and you submit receipts after the fact. I would much prefer as much on their dime, even if I get reward points out of the deal.

[Susie]

I've never applied for a voucher before traveling; I've always either booked using a firm card, or I've submitted receipts after I've come back from the trip.

[Jalapeñomel]

Apr 3, 2024 13:05:19 GMT -5 wildrice said:

Apr 3, 2024 12:40:30 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

This was my initial thought as well...the credit card points might be worth the upfront expense.  

This is also what I would do. I guess the one caveat is that I'd want to know about how long it takes to get reimbursed and how much this trip costs - if we're talking a couple of thousand and it could take 2 months to get paid back, I might be less inclined to front the money.

I handle professional development reimbursements for my org and the majority of people do pay for it themselves and get reimbursed. We have been trying to be more proactive in paying for things upfront instead because it can be a hardship to staff to have to front the money and we don't want them to have to choose between that and paying their rent or whatever. I'm glad both options are available at your H's employer!

This is an excellent point, as I would not want to carry $4k worth of costs on a CC for a couple months.

He’s going to a conference in Ireland, so it could cost between $3500-$4000.

[rhian]

Apr 3, 2024 14:40:13 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

Apr 3, 2024 13:05:19 GMT -5 wildrice said:

This is also what I would do. I guess the one caveat is that I'd want to know about how long it takes to get reimbursed and how much this trip costs - if we're talking a couple of thousand and it could take 2 months to get paid back, I might be less inclined to front the money.

I handle professional development reimbursements for my org and the majority of people do pay for it themselves and get reimbursed. We have been trying to be more proactive in paying for things upfront instead because it can be a hardship to staff to have to front the money and we don't want them to have to choose between that and paying their rent or whatever. I'm glad both options are available at your H's employer!

This is an excellent point, as I would not want to carry $4k worth of costs on a CC for a couple months.

He’s going to a conference in Ireland, so it could cost between $3500-$4000.

Along those lines, something to consider - my institution will not reimburse until you have completed the travel. So even if you pay for the plane ticket and conference registration 2 months before the conference, you cannot get reimbursement until after you return from the trip.

[litskispeciality]

Oh good point rhian,. I haven't been able to travel by plane for work, but the airline charges your card the moment you purchase the ticket, not when you get on the plane. National hotels typically either don't charge, or charge like 50% until you've checked-in, but find out how that might work overseas. In my experience I couldn't submit reimbursement until I was back with a receipt, and I wasn't going to drive back in on Friday to drop off a form, so that added a few extra days as I'm sure Payroll didn't go through my stuff on that same Monday.

Can anyone speak to what happens if the trip or flight is cancelled or has to be re-booked resulting in another fee? Is that something OP's H should worry about, like trip insurance?

[picksthemusic]

My H travels for conferences about every other year. We pay up front and get reimbursed. If you can afford it, it's worked out for us. In fact, we're doing just that (and making a long weekend getaway out of it) for Chicago soon.

[InBetweenDays]

Apr 3, 2024 15:25:19 GMT -5 litskispeciality said:

Can anyone speak to what happens if the trip or flight is cancelled or has to be re-booked resulting in another fee? Is that something OP's H should worry about, like trip insurance?

I think the OP's H would need to look at his work's travel policy. Ours says:


Reimbursement is allowable if change/cancellation was due to:

• (University name) business
• Cancelled conference/meeting
• Airline cancelled flight (replacement fare must be used for future UW business trip or surrendered to the department)
• Unexpected death of a family member
  
• Traveler's own unexpected illness which kept them from taking the business trip or continuing the trip as planned and is not due to the traveler's own misconduct/negligence.
  
• The department has made the determination that if the travel were to take place, the health and safety of the traveler would be at risk (refer to department section in policy accountability). In Workday, write "traveler safety" in the memo field and add context in a comment
  

I had work travel booked for a conference in late March 2020 that was of course cancelled. The airline gave me credit which I was able to use later, but if I hadn't been able to use it the university still would have reimbursed me.

[doctoranda]

I work in higher ed. and I always cover it up front and get it reimbursed. They are really fast with reimbursement though.

[Roc A Bee]

As someone who processses paperwork, please for the love of god pay for it and get reimbursed. It’s way easier.

[dancingirl21]

My DH travels every week for work. We pay for everything when he books on our credit card and he gets reimbursed. That said, he gets paid weekly and is reimbursed the following week for every previous week's travel costs, mostly. The flights he books a couple of weeks in advance so we carry those on our credit card and pay off when it's time. We do it this way for the points/miles our credit cards accrue. We fly as a family 3-4 times per year, mostly free to us because of all his travel points and miles.

[Jalapeñomel]

Apr 3, 2024 17:31:00 GMT -5 Roc A Bee said:

As someone who processses paperwork, please for the love of god pay for it and get reimbursed. It’s way easier.

But it seems like this is the more complicated way for us!

[Patsy Baloney]

My workplace will have admins make as much of the travel arrangements as possible - hotel, flight, conference registration, etc. - then reimburse any eligible expenses/per diem upon return.

I would try not to carry any of the cost or as little as you can if he’s at a state institution (I skimmed, sorry if this has been gone over). It can take a long time for reimbursement to come through.

[cap]

Apr 3, 2024 12:09:39 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

So my DH has to travel to a conference, and he receives $$ as the department chair. No one has really used it for travel for many years, so he doesn't really know what the norm is, and I told him I'd crowdsource just for information. 

Anyway, he can either pay for his travel up front and then submit for reimbursement when he returns. Or he can apply for a voucher to get the funds before he leaves.  What would would you do? 

I'm in higher ed. When I travel for work, things like hotel, rental cars, flights, etc. have to be booked directly through the university's travel platform and then gets direct billed to the appropriate account. I put meals and stuff like that on my personal credit card and then get reimbursed once I'm back. I just claim per diem on the meals because it's a pain to keep receipts. I have a university "purchasing card" (credit card) that can be used for conference registration. 

Since it sounds like those things aren't options, I would personally pay up front and then get reimbursed after travel, mostly so that I could get credit card points. I am fortunate that it's not a hardship to do that. My university is also very quick at processing travel reimbursements, so everything that I would pay for during travel would likely get reimbursed before the credit card bill is due. 

[livinitup]

I have the flexibility in my budget to front the costs, submit receipts and pay myself back when I get the reimbursement. I once worked for a company with employees with tighter personal budgets and the person in the finance office always made sure we had our per diem in cash (for food) before we left. It was a nice gesture that recognized that some people don’t have a lot of cash to float for a work trip.

Everyone submitted all the receipts. The only issue I saw with getting the cash in advance was when someone did not save a receipt and they owed money back.