Travel

Basic Travel Info

General UF Go travel page

WEC Travel Forms

Important policies to know

• Do not pay for gas with a Pcard unless you have a state vehicle or rental. Fuel in a personal vehicle can only be paid through a mileage calculation.
• The amount of per diem you can claim is based on your actual travel times (eg If you are flying, it is based on your actual departure and arrival times).
• You can only get reimbursed for tipping taxi/Uber/Lyft drivers up to 20%.
• There are special rules for conferences, see the conference section below.
• It is possible to add personal travel to UF travel, see the personal travel section below.
• See the A-Z Guide for more.

The travel process at UF can be broken down into 3 major steps:

1. Travel Request
2. Booking travel
3. Travel Expense Report (TER, being reimbursed for travel)

Travel Request

This must be done before you can travel. This form acheives 2 things. It gives you permission to travel (assigns a TA number), and triggers the staff to ‘commit’ some money to the trip in all the categories you indicate on the form (usually they just commit $0.01 as a placeholder).

Fill out the TRAVEL REQUEST / BLANKET TRAVEL REQUEST FORM

Most of the form is self-explanatory.

• Blanket travel: You can fill this form out once to configure multiple trips if you do the same trip repeatedly (eg field work)
  • List all personnel that will/may go on any trip during the time period
  • List all volunteers that may go on a trip during the time period (if you know, you may need to add them later if you don’t, see volunteer section below)
  • Enter start date as the current date, and end date as a date after the end of the final trip (easier for the staff if you just do one fiscal period at a time)
• Please provide justification for essential travel: Take care to provide a thorough justification of why the travel is needed
  • No: field work
  • Yes: Travel to field site to collect data and perform maintenance
• Chartfield to Charge: You can get this from Glenda if you don’t know it
• Benefit to Funding Source: Provide a clear explanation as to how the travel will benefit the chartfield you listed above
  • No: field work
  • Yes: LTREB data collection for monitoring and forecasting
• Meals (Unless travelling internationally): Choose
  • Meal rate - Domestic (36.00 Per Day)
  • Meal type - Personal Funds
  • Estimated Meal Amount - 36*days (this is the maximum, actual amount will be calculated after travel)
• International Travel: See INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL to ensure you’re following all the additional guidelines necessary.

The WEC staff will email you a request from Concur when ready to approve.

You do NOT need to wait for the request to be approved to start booking your travel (unless it is conference travel).

Booking Travel

With few exeptions, you must book all UF-related travel through UFGO’s booking agent.

• Log into UFGO (concursolutions.com).
• Ensure you already have your profile (top right) set up with your contact info, P Card info, any loyalty programs you are a part of (airline, hotel, car rental), and your travel preferences.
• Go to Travel (in the top menu bar).
• Under TRIP SEARCH in the left pane, ensure you have selected ‘Business Travel’ and ‘Booking for myself’.
• Book flights, hotel and/or rental car all on the same itinerary.
• Under Method of Payment, choose AirCard for flights, P Card for everything else.
• If you do not have a P Card, you can enter a personal card for purchasing hotels and rental cars. Or you can have a WEC staff member purchase them for you so you don’t have to wait for the reimbursement.

Travel Expense Report

This form is what you submit to get reimbursed for your expenses while traveling. It should be submitted ASAP upon return. UF employees must submit their own expense report. This is the only way the staff know exactly how much to reimburse you for (eg you have to do the calculation here for per diem). You attach receipts at this point. This triggers the staff to put actual amounts in the trip they created when you sent the request form, and send it to you for approval. You will not be reimbursed until you click Submit Report on a report in Concur (be sure to double check the amounts before you submit).

Once all your travel is completed and you have all your receipts ready to upload, fill out the TRAVEL EXPENSE REPORT / OUT OF POCKET REIMBURSEMENT FORM

• Per Diem
  • Do not attach receipts for expenses related to food/drink/consumables. Reimbursement for this is done via per diem. Just keep track of your total meal expenses, you don’t need to keep receipts.
  • The maximum amount of per diem you can claim is based on your actual travel times (eg If you are flying, it is based on your actual departure and arrival times). Calculate your max as $36*day for full days, plus just breakfast/dinner for partial days.
  • Under Travel Meals Amount, enter your total expense, or the maximum allowed (if your total is over the maximum).
• Attach receipts for any other out of pocket expenses (eg Uber), and be sure to indicate these as Out of Pocket expenses on the form (not P Card)
• P Card receipts
  • When you’re traveling, you can use the PCARD RECEIPT SUBMISSION FORM to submit receipts as you go, if you want to get it out of the way, or if your trip is long and will go over the submission deadline.
  • Or you can save them and just attach them all to your expense report after your trip instead.
• Mileage
  • Similar to per diem, you cannot get reimbursed for fuel put in your personal vehicle. So no need to save receipts.
  • You are compensated for the use of your vehicle with a mileage calculation ($0.445/mile).
  • Attach a Maps screenshot showing the beginning, end, and mileage for the trip.
  • The mileage compensation is not for long-distance trips. If you are traveling a significant distance by car for a work trip, you should be using a UF vehicle or a rental vehicle. If you must use a personal vehicle, do not enter the total mileage calculation, only the amount actually spent on fuel.
  • If the trip is long because it is combined with personal travel, use a rental vehicle and pay personally for the rental fee on the personal leg of the trip.
• WEC Fiscal Staff will email you a copy of report when ready to approve.
• Log into UFGO (concursolutions.com).
• Go to Expense (in the top menu bar).
• Current reports will be shown in the REPORT LIBRARY. Choose the name matching your notification email.
• Check everything carefully and make sure everything is entered correctly. Check that out of pocket expenses have Personal Funds under Payment Type, and P Card expenses have UFLOR PCard.
• If everything is correct, click Submit Report.

Conference Travel

The PCard may be used to pay registration fees for conferences, conventions, or seminars. This includes those where the registration fee includes meals or social events. Registration reciepts must be itemized so UF can determine whether meals/social events/lodging are included in the fee or can be charged separately.

Optional events, those with separate fees, cannot be paid via PCard. Optional events must be paid for by the traveler.

Travel Requests, required for all travel relating to conferences/conventions, must be done BEFORE making charges. The Travel Request number must be written on receipts and other supporting payment documentation.

Personal Travel Before or After UF-related Travel

You are welcome to add some personal travel to a UF-related work trip. You will just need to submit the information in your TA and TER. During your entire period of travel, you will need to designate each day as a ‘work’ day or ’non-work’ day. When booking in UFGO, document the itinerary and price for what you would have booked if personal travel were not included, and include this as an attachment in your TER.

Volunteer Travel

If volunteers are also traveling with the group (eg field trips), they will need to complete the WEC - POI / Volunteer Request Form. For travel purposes, this is generally only for volunteers that are non-UF employees that will need to be reimbursed (per diem, mileage). They need a UFID to submit an expense report and be reimbursed. This form triggers the staff to create the volunteer as a POI (person of interest) in UF’s system, get them a UFID, and add their contact and banking info to the system so they can be reimbursed. The staff may also infer they need a Travel Request and create one, but it’s not guaranteed. So it’s best to check with the staff, or just also submit the Travel Request Form on their behalf. Immediately after the trip, the trip leader must submit expense reports on behalf of all volunteers. Check in with volunteers to be sure they know to look for their expense report to approve, and then that they have been reimbursed.