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So, in addition to the per diem question previously posted, Iowa State University has another situation around meals. (We spend about 80% of our time debating various meal issues. Meals are about 30% of our total spend). Our Study Abroad program has seen cuts in recent years and it is funded in a significant portion by student fees and study abroad fees. ISU's policy is to reimburse per diem, but in light of additional budget considerations study abroad is worried. The foreign per diems are often more than the actual spent, and our Study Abroad leaders are by and large very good stewards of their money. They want to claim actuals instead of per diem. We have granted them an exception to claim actuals when traveling but that has created another problem. ISU maintains that when actuals are claimed, receipts are required. This is a university policy. The way to avoid receipts on meals is to just do per diem. My question is this:
*Do any other Study Abroad programs use actuals in lieu of per diem?
*If so, are receipts required
*If receipts are not required for actual meals, what do you do to ensure meal amounts (other than posted per diem) are not subject to additional review or scrutiny
*We also have a lot of Study Abroad coordinators who purchase groceries abroad instead of eating out. If they are purchasing fruits and vegetables from farmers markets, growers, or private sellers, how do you handle receipt requirements?
Thanks!
Posted : 03/04/2025 3:33 am
Dave, I'll reply to both on this thread:
For Problem I, you're not alone. We have the same problem at UNC where we tell our accountholders that their card can be used for everything except their personal meals and driving their personal car. I don't have any solutions for Workday, unfortunately, as we use Concur Expense. Employees are required to mark the incorrect charges as personal and it's netted against their out of pocket reimbursement.
For Problem II, our Study Abroad office sets a per diem budget for each trip that obviously cannot exceed the allowable per diem reimbursement for the destination. When expense reports are submitted, they ensure that the traveler is only requesting per diem up to the budgeted amount. So they're still receiving per diem and thusly we don't have to request receipts, but it allows Study Abroad to reimburse at a lower total amount.
I hope that helps!
Rebecca
UNC-Chapel Hill
Posted : 03/04/2025 3:39 am
When is comes to study abroad, we only provide per diem for individual meals, not for any group student meals. Also, we articulate that the per diem rate is the maximum per diem allowed. Some of our departments provide a lower per diem rate based upon their needs and budgetary constraints. When a card is used for student or group meals, we do require an itemized receipt.
Posted : 03/04/2025 3:46 am
I will reply here as well to both questions Part 1, We do allow our users to use cards for meals while on travel, when they do that pcard meal expense is automatically deducted from their reimbursement. In cases where they go over per diem it would be a payroll deduction. (We report on this monthly).
Part 2 We do allow the travelers to claim actuals. We do require receipts when claiming actuals. The user can use their pcard for meals (those are automatically deducted from reimbursement per that expense type config) then we created an expense type for them to reduce their reimbursement called reimbursement reduction so they can within the report reduce the reimbursement down to actuals removing any excess per diem.
Dawn
Penn State University
Posted : 03/04/2025 3:56 am
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