Expense Reporting

When to Submit Your Expense Report

It is very important that you submit your Concur expense report within 30 days of the end date of your trip or from the date of purchase. Please submit just one expense report per trip. Reference the Expense Subcode List. For assistance on which policy to use for your expense report, reference the Concur Travel VS Non-Travel Policy Flow Chart. 

Long-unreconciled University expenses of more than 90 days will become reported taxable income on an employee’s paycheck and will reduce the paycheck in accordance with the taxes for the unreconciled expense amount. Visit the imputed income on long-unreconciled expenses page to learn more. 

Forced Reconciliation Procedure

It is important to the University’s financial statements that all OneCard (and former Travel Card) and cash/personal credit card expenses are properly recorded as University expenses in a timely fashion. To ensure the recording of overdue OneCard (and former Travel Card) and cash/personal credit card expenses, the following procedure will be enacted monthly.

1. All unsubmitted and unassigned non-travel expenses and travel expenses for completed trips or transaction dates more than 90-days old will be placed on an expense report by the Payment Processing & Compliance Department for Concur users.
   • The expense report will be charged to one of the Concur user's default accounts unless the user changes this.
   • If the Business Travel Start & End Dates are missing in the Header of your Pitt Travel Expense Report the report is subject to Forced Reconciliation.
2. Journal entries may be done to correct any expenses hitting incorrect account numbers. All journal entries (non salary cost transfer) must be recorded by Financial Record Services (FRS) by the date indicated on the fiscal year-close schedule to be properly recorded in the correct fiscal year.
   • To change the account number after it has been expensed, the Concur user or department admin will need to submit a journal entry correction for fiscal year-end reporting in accordance with the fiscal year end close schedule published on General Accounting's website.
   • You will not be able to correct expenses for future travel reconciled and expensed in the wrong year with a journal entry (non salary cost transfer).

Important Notes for Forced Reconciliation Procedure

• Line items without a receipt or business purpose description, when that information is required, is considered taxable income by the IRS.
  • The cardholder will be able to add receipts and/or business purposes after a report has been submitted and approved, however this will not remove the imputed income once applied to the expense report.
• Departments may have additional requirements or requests for expense reporting. Please check with your approver to verify they have no further requirements.

OneCard

Make sure that all OneCard transactions have been downloaded into Concur from the bank (depicted by an orange symbol). This can take up to a week depending on the merchant. As soon as the card transactions are available, you can process your expense report.

Foreign Transaction Fees 

The following processes should be used for the reimbursement of foreign transaction fees dependent on the type of credit card used:

University OneCard

1. Each foreign transaction fee must be added to an expense report in Concur as an individual line item.
2. The traveler must allocate only the line item(s) for foreign transaction fees to the following Travel Account: 02.02105.00000.000000.00001. All other line items should be charged to the appropriate department or grant dependent on the default account code used for the expense report.  
3. Once the traveler submits their completed expense report in Concur, it will be routed to the approver of the travel account to review and approve the foreign transaction fee line items. Final review and approval will be completed by Payment Processing & Compliance.

While these fees will still appear on the cardholder’s statement, they will not appear on the department’s level reports when allocated to and reimbursed by the Travel Account.

Personal Credit Card

Foreign transaction fees charged to a personal credit card must be allocated to the traveler’s department using the appropriate account code.

Mileage

Mileage Reimbursement

Use Concur's Mileage Calculator to calculate reimbursable miles. See Entering Personal Car Mileage in the User Guide for more information.

Personal Mileage

When using your personal vehicle for business purposes, reimbursement will be based on the mileage rate established by the Internal Revenue Service. Mileage is to be calculated using the Google Map function in Concur from your starting point to your destination. You must deduct your commute from your total mileage. The mileage reimbursement is to cover operating cost of your vehicle such as fuel, insurance coverage, repairs, etcetera. Parking and tolls are separate from the mileage rate.

Commuting Expenses

You may not be reimbursed for the costs of taking a bus, trolley, subway, or taxi, or of driving a car between your home and your regular place of work regardless of the distance--even if you work during the commute.

Meals

The fixed per diem amount for your destination determines your daily meal allowance (in Concur, this is called a travel allowance). To get your per diem, create or import an itinerary into your expense report in Concur. Exclude any meals that you did not have to pay for. If you used your OneCard to pay for individual meals, mark those expenses as personal. This will prevent the University from paying twice for your meals.

Per Diem Calculators

You can utilize the following calculators based on domestic or international travel to find the per diem rate set for the specific area you visit.

• U.S. Per Diem Calculator
• International Per Diem Calculator

Lodging

Your hotel invoice (or "folio") should be attached to your expense report. Upload your paper or electronic copy - unless the hotel sent an e-receipt directly to Concur. Look at the itemization on the folio, and itemize your lodging expenses in Concur to match. Itemization separates room rate from room taxes and separates business expenses (such as required wireless internet service) from personal expenses (such as movies, dry cleaning, and room service).

Out-of-Pocket Expenses

Remember to include out-of-pocket expenses. You may have paid in cash for metro tickets, parking, or shuttle transportation. If you drove to the airport, use Concur's Mileage Calculator to figure out your reimbursable miles.

Per Diem

The University supports per diems for meals in travel when the duration of the trip is at least eight hours. Some departments may apply a more stringent policy for actual meal receipts in travel; please check with your supervisor or business manager for specific departmental per diem policies. The University will not reimburse above the per diem rate. If you are following per diem, visit www.gsa.gov for details; the rates on this website are loaded in the Concur application and can be imported from your itinerary.

Receipts

An electronic receipt is required for any travel expense over $75 and for any meal regardless of dollar amount. Receipts are not required if you are taking per diem. For group business meals, see specific policy language. If you already used the Concur Mobile app or ExpenseIt to send your receipts unless you are to the Receipt Store, your receipts are already in Concur and ready to be applied to your expense report. Otherwise, upload your receipts into Concur. Note - receipts must be legible.

Expense Reimbursement

Once your expense report is complete, click Details, then Totals to see if the University owes you money. Any money owed to you will be directly deposited into your bank account.

If you do not have direct deposit established with the University, then a check will be mailed to your home address (the address on file with the Payroll department).

If reimbursement is for a nonemployee, the payment will be mailed to the site address selected during expense entry. If you indicated that you would like to pick up the check for the nonemployee, you will receive an email when the check is ready for pick-up. Details will be included in the email.

If you owe money to the University, please make a check payable the University of Pittsburgh within 10 days of filing your expense report and send it to the Payment Processing department: Craig Hall, 200 S. Craig St. Pittsburgh, PA 15260 (Campus Mail: CRAIG-210).

Reimbursement for Dependent Care Expenses

In January 2022, we shared information to clarify the University’s current policies and processes related to dependent care reimbursement. This was in response to some external funding agencies, such as the NIH, making certain types of dependent care expenses allowable on sponsored projects with the appropriate supporting documentation and subject to dollar limits that are unique to each funding agency and award.  

While University Policy FN28 generally excludes dependent care reimbursement, that Policy does allow for exceptions.  In accordance with that Policy, the University has granted an exception to permit reimbursement where allowable, under certain sponsored projects. Additionally, a committee has been created to review University Policy FN 28, including the rules regarding the University’s reimbursement of dependent care expenses, and recommend a revised permanent policy.   

The following are clarifications regarding the processes for these types of reimbursements: 

• If externally sponsored award funding is not available: Care.com is available to University employees. Review the Office of Human Resources (OHR) website for full details about Care.com.
• Individuals with external funding for dependent care: may choose to use either their external funding or Care.com, as long as reimbursement requests submitted to all funding sources do not exceed 100% of the dependent care expense receipt. This means that if allowable, part of the expense may be submitted for reimbursement against a sponsored project, and part may be submitted to Care.com. 
• Dependent care expenses on externally funded awards from federal and non-federal sources will be permitted according to sponsor/donor guidelines. Federal sources allow expenses that are allowable, reasonable, and allocable. Compliance with the terms and conditions of each award and documentation requirements of individual externally funded awards are the responsibility of department research grant/gift administrators, which might include proof of sponsored project funding, receipt of expense incurred, and/or provider license. 
• Visit this page for full details about dependent care reimbursement, including a flow chart outlining the reimbursement process through Concur.  
• Care.com co-payments can be reimbursed using externally sponsored award funding through the Concur process outlined in this flow chart. 

Chart of Procedures for Reimbursement for Dependent Care Expenses

If you have any questions about submitting dependent expenses that are associated with an externally funded award via Concur, please contact Purchase, Pay & Travel Customer Service. For questions related to Care.com, please contact the Office of Human Resources.  

Resources

• OHR website – Care.com Benefit Details  
• Grants.nih.gov website - NIH will begin providing childcare cost support to full-time predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees