| Processing a Travel Advance |
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WHAT IS A TRAVEL ADVANCE
Subject to departmental approval, a traveler may request an advance of up to a maximum of $500 to cover out-of-pocket, incidental expenses while traveling domestically. Any advance should be requested within a reasonable period of time (10 to 20 days) before the official business trip. A travel advance is meant to cover expenses that cannot reasonably be charged to a charge card.
The following circumstances may require a travel advance exceeding $500
- International travel
- Travel by teams or large groups
- Travel by graduate research assistants, resident fellows, and part-time attending physicians
- Travel for recruiting purposes
- Funds for program or research start-up or short-term operations
- Payments to conference/research participants
- Travel by employees who have applied and were denied a corporate charge card (an exception memorandum, signed by a DAF, must accompany a request due to this circumstance)
Requests for travel advances exceeding $500 should include a description of the circumstance that would require the advance and a brief budget of expenses.
HOW TO OBTAIN TRAVEL ADVANCE FORMS
To order a packet of Travel Advance forms, please call or email Frank Valdez in the Office of the Controller at (212) 854-4694 fjv1@columbia.edu. Please include your building address, mailcode and phone number when ordering forms.
A travel advance should be reconciled within 20 working days after the completion of a trip. Each outstanding travel advance must be reconciled before a new advance will be issued.
There are two exceptions:
- When the second trip is within five working days of the first.
- When the advance is serving to fund programs or research start-up operations, and is approved by the dean, vp, associate dean or senior financial officer.
Please note: A traveler must reconcile an outstanding travel advance before he or she will be issued any reimbursement, whether it be for travel or for another business-related expense.
Upon termination of employment, all employees must promptly reconcile all outstanding advances.
If the travel advance is not reconciled within 90 days of the trip end date, both the traveler and the department will receive written notification from Accounts Payable.
If the travel advance is not reconciled within 120 days of the trip, the traveler should be advised the following will occur without additional notification:
- suspension of travel advance privileges
- the reporting of the advance as income to the IRS on the traveler’s annual Form W-2
- withholding of taxes on the advance from the traveler’s paycheck
- the employee continuing to be responsible for clearing the advance in order to have this properly charged to the departmental accounts
Please note: once an unsettled advance has been added to the traveler’s W-2, it cannot be reversed.
- On the menu bar in the “Pending Invoices” window, select the Invoice pull-down menu.
- Select New Invoice.
- Enter the traveler's name, last name first.
- In the Invoice Number field, enter the travel advance invoice number (“T######”).
As soon as a processor enters a travel advance invoice number (“T######”), AP/CAR searches the Accounts Payable database for a previous advance to the vendor that has not been cleared.
If an unreconciled advance is found, the processor will be asked to supply a reason for the additional advance.
- To override, enter a reason and click Accept. A confirmation notice will be displayed.
- To cancel processing, click Cancel Override. In most cases, outstanding travel advances must be reconciled before a new one is issued.
5. Enter the gross amount of the travel advance invoice.
If you exceed the maximum allowable advance amount, currently set at $500, the following window will appear, requesting a reason for the excess amount.
- To override the condition, enter a valid reason and click Accept.
- To cancel pricessing, click Cancel Override.
6. Click Add at the bottom left of the distribution browse table.
7. Move the cursor to the Account field by pressing <tab>.
8. Enter an account with a travel advance subcode on a distribution line in the same manner as you would any other account number.
Please Note: Travel advance invoices must be paid from FAS accounts with a “2380” subcode.
However, after confirming the account selection, the system will not move the cursor immediately to the Amount field. Instead, the Travel “Distribution Line Description” window opens.
Please Note: If the vendor is an employee, the system automatically copies the vendor number into the Traveler’s Vendor Number field.
The Traveler’s Vendor Number and Travel Advance Number are required. If travel will be longer than one month, the Long Term End Trip Date is used to record the year and month the traveler will return. There are two user-defined fields for optional text.
9. Enter or confirm the required information in the “Distribution Line Description” window
10. Click Accept.
You will be returned to the invoice distribution line, with the cursor in the Amount field. Notice that the Description field now reads “Travel”.
To close out a Travel Advance receivable, fill out a Travel and Business Expense Report and attach the original receipts that account for the advance. The following are three possible scenarios for clearing Travel Advance receivables:
1) A Travel Advance is issued for $3,500, and the traveler used exactly $3,500. A Gross Amount entry of "$0" should be processed as follows:
a) Enter 0 dollars in the “Gross Amount” field of the invoice header.
b) Enter a debit of $3,500 against the departmental account(s) with appropriate subcodes.
c) Enter a credit of $3,500 against the departmental account (the same account as the advance payment) using subcode “2380”.
2) A Travel Advance is issued for $2,500, and the traveler spent $2,657.56. The University owes the traveler $157.56. The $157.56 reimbursement should be processed as follows:
a) Enter $157.56 in the Gross Amount field of the invoice header.
b) Enter a debit of $2,657.56 against the departmental account(s) with appropriate subcode(s).
c) Enter a credit of $2,500 against the departmental account (the same account as the advance payment), using subcode “2380”.
d) A check in the amount of $157.56 will be issued to the traveler.
3) A Travel Advance is issued for $4,715.41, and the traveler spent $4,050.99. The traveler owes the University $664.42. A zero entry should be processed as follows:
a) Enter $0 in the Gross Amount field of the invoice header.
b) Enter a debit of $4,050.99 against the departmental account, with the appropriate subcode.
c) Enter a credit of $4,715.41 against the departmental account (the same account as the advance payment), using the “2380” subcode.
d) Enter a debit of $664.42 against the departmental account with the clearing subcode “2381”. The department must deposit a personal check, payable to “Columbia University”, for $664.42, accompanied by a completed “Cash Receipt Voucher”, through the Bursar’s Office against subcode “2381”.
e) Attach copies of the check and the “Cash Receipt Voucher” to the Travel & Business Expense Report.
GO TO TRAVEL EXPENSE REIMBURSEMENT INFO PAGE
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