Determining the Applicable Travel Policy

To determine whether an expense is allowed and the appropriate rates to be used for allowable expenses, it is necessary to determine the Travel Policy assigned to the traveler. Travel Policy by Expense Type (TRPET) allows travel administrators to define policies that can be used site-wide for specific Expense Types. In addition to defining travel policies that can be used site-wide, travel administrators may define department-level exceptions for a given Expense Type using Department Travel Policy by Expense Type (TRPETD). These departmental Expense Type exceptions may be defined for an entire Department or for a Unit within a Department.For a Dual-Site implementation, these are the Home Department and Home Unit of the employee. For a Financial only implementation, these are the Department and Unit fields on Vendor/Customer.

The travel administrator also sets the rates, options, and procedures for the expense type on the given travel policy (in Travel Policy by Expense Type and/or Department Travel Policy by Expense Type). For example, the administrator may specify the Mileage Rate, whether a receipt or quote is required, or the Reimbursement Percentage for a particular Expense Type. In the event that the policy changes, it is possible that in later Travel transactions an error will be issued for edits that had passed in earlier Travel transactions (for example, if the Travel Authorization (TRAUTH) was submitted to Final and the travel policy later changes, then an error is issued when the Travel Expense Report (TRER) is submitted even if it includes the same information from the related TRAUTH).

The determination of the applicable travel policy for an expense type is as follows:

For a Dual Implementation, this is defined in the Travel Policy field on Employee Assignment.
For a Financial-Only implementation, this is defined in the Travel Policy field on Vendor/Customer.
A Travel Policy by Expense Type is found using the traveler’s assigned travel policy, the Expense Type from the Trip Details line, and the date of expense. If a record is not found, the traveler cannot submit the given expense type. If a record is found, the system checks for a Department or a Department and Unit exception to the site-wide policy. If the latter is found, it supplies information for transaction processing.