General Travel Reimbursement Guidelines UAB/UAB Hospital

General Travel Reimbursement Guidelines UAB/UAB Hospital

Allowable prepaid cost before your meeting:

• Airfare:  Airfare can be purchased in advance by appropriate HSF credit card or if traveling on an UAB account, the appropriate UAB P-Card via AdvTravel.
• Registration:  Registration can be paid directly to the organization hosting meeting using HSF or UAB P-Card.
  • Note:  Both airfare and registration can be procured by traveler, however, the cost will not be reimbursed unite after the related travel takes place.
• Posters and abstracts:  Are not considered part of your travel cost, therefore they can be reimbursement either before or after your travel.

All other travel related costs will be reimbursed after a trip:

Other Employee Reimbursement Guidelines to remember:

• All cost should reflect what cost would be if employee traveling alone only for purpose of the meeting.
• Most detailed receipt available for all cost seeking reimbursement.
• Lodging: Single occupancy standard room, anything else will need justification.
  • Sharing a hotel room with family is permissible, but reimbursement will be limited to single occupancy event rate.  Please provide single occupancy rate for difference calculation, if something other than a single occupancy room rate is used.
  • Itemize lodging receipt showing each day stay’s cost.
• Transportation:  Airfare limited to economy class
  • Lessor of Airfare or mileage will be reimbursed if driving personal car.
  • If seeking to substitute some form of transportation for airfare, please obtain a comparable airfare rate at least 6 to 7 weeks in advance of travel date.
• Rent-a-car:  Should be avoided unless the rent-a-car is necessary as part of the trip.  An example of a necessity is making multiple site visits during a multi-day trip or location of event is far from nearest airport.
  • Limited to economical vehicle unless multiple UAB Medicine employee traveling together necessitate a larger vehicle.  Employees traveling while performing UAB Medicine business are covered by UAB Medicine’s insurance.  Additional insurance or other add-ons purchased for rental will not be reimbursed.  Please check each situation with RON Finance before obtaining a rent-a-car.
• Meals:  Limited to 3 meals per day.  Snacks and OTC medicine are not reimbursable.
  • Need both 1) Itemized meal receipt & 2) Total meal receipt including tip.
• Timing:  Turn receipts into your Administrative Associate within 30 days of returning from trip.

Expect 3 weeks to process your reimbursement and receive payment.

Point of emphasis from HSF Accounting:

• Itemized meal receipts:  HSF will not reimburse meals without an itemized receipt.  Please keep both the itemized and the total receipts.  If the restaurant will not provide an itemized receipt, please include a brief note summarizing that the restaurant was non-compliance with your request for an itemized receipt, as well as, some sort of verification that you are only seeking reimbursement for your meal.
• Hotel and meal costs more than one day before or after the listed days of the conference:

If applicable, please explain any business reason why you are requesting reimbursement for lodging, meals or other cost incurred more than 1 day prior or after the conference dates.  Some examples of such reason would be difficulty obtaining transportation or collaborator meetings outside of the official conference days.

UAB Differences

• Alcohol beverages not allowed
• Meals limited to ($25) breakfast, ($50) lunch & ($75) dinner
  • UAB has interpreted timing of 3PM lunch as a snack – [receipts timed 11AM, 3PM and 8PM (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) might be recognized as (lunch, snack, and dinner)] – resulting in the 3PM expense not being reimbursed.
• Meeting Agenda required.  UAB will check if meal provided at meeting and will not reimburse a meal if one was offered as part of the registration fee.
• Must have travel pre-approval form completed before any travel related cost is procured (even if on department P-Card)