We also provide per diem, but we also have a travel card. The travel card is typically used for hotels and entertaining. We have not had significant issues, but When someone does "double dip", we require them to refund the school for the charged meal that is a duplicate of their per diem. If it reoccurs, we will discontinue their travel card.

We offer per diem for travelers who pay out of pocket. If a traveler has a corporate card, they cannot use the meal per diem.

We advise our travel community to use their Travel Card for meals. Reimbursements cost our university to process, that office is short staffed, and we are trying to gather all costs for rebates, discounts, etc. Many times, the meal on the Travel Card was less than what the reimbursement would have cost. We also use Workday, so the traveler uploads their receipts when they reconcile. I am very new to this group, and I am excited to learn and grow and attend the conference later this year!

We also advise our travelers to either use their P-Card for meals, or to claim per diem and not use their card for any meals. Meals are deducted, or the daily meal allowance is reduced by the amount of the expenditure if there is a valid business reason for the reimbursement request while claiming meal per diem/daily allowance.

Kathy Goodwin - SMU

Dave we at CU have a similar situation to you were we pay only per diem for meals, nut we do also have a corp liability travel card and people will often use that to pay for food while in travel status. We, however, use Concur Expense and that makes it pretty simple to deduct those personal amounts for food (along with any other personal expenses) from the total owed back to the employee on the travel report. I think I would investigate further with Workday to see what options you have for adjusting this in the report creation - it's not an unusual way to handle reimbursements (adjusting out personal amounts, like food). Good luck!

Hi Dave,

At the University of Alaska, we offer a per diem allowance or actual meals (with itemized receipts) up to the allowance. We have a corporate travel card program and encourage the use of the card for meals to reduce out of pocket expenses. We then have an expense type in our T&E system called "per diem offset", this nets from the allowance available to them in the expense reporting process. If they overspend, we have a payroll deduction acknowledgement as part of the report submission and then send a report to payroll weekly. This has solved a lot of problems for traveler when they accidentally use their travel card over a personal form of payment.

We do have rubs with meals for field work, co-mingling of actuals and the per diem allowance across groups. Catering purchases that should go on a Pcard. You definitely aren't alone.

At Houston Community College, the employee's are not allowed to use their T & E card for meals. We only reimburse per diem for meals that are NOT provided by conference or event. In order for the employee to receive per diem, they will need to provide a conferenece agenda or an event agenda. If the employee is traveling with a group of student, then theyre allowed to use their T&E card for meals, ONLY for the students and provide an itimized receipt. While on the student group travel, the employee pays for their meals out of pocket and then receive reimbursement after the travel is complete - based on the conference or event agenda.

At BYU-Idaho, we are also Workday customers and heavy users of our corporate cards. As mentioned, there really is not a perfect solution and all come with pain points. Our approach is a little unique based on actuals and encouraging usage of our corporate card.

1. If a personal card is used for travel meals, a receipt is required for reimbursement.
2. If a corporate card is used and the meal is UNDER a certain threshold, no receipt is required.
3. If a corporate card is used and the meal is OVER a certain threshold, a receipt and explanation is required (e.g. I was in New York City) or the employee can itemize part of the meal as personal and it is charged to their employee account.
4. All group meals require a receipt and participant list or for larger groups, a group name.