Pre-Approval and Expense Report

Reimbursements

Brigham Young University uses the following procedures to reimburse employees, students, and non-employees and to pay travel vendors for all necessary and appropriate transportation and travel-related costs incurred with approved university activities. The Chrome River system is used to file a pre-trip approval document called a Pre-Approval and a post-trip reimbursement document called a Travel Expense Report. For instructions and training on this system, enroll in the Chrome River training sessions offered in Training LMS. For specific questions, contact our Help Desk at 801-422-5644.

Travel Pre-Approval

All employees, students, and non-employees traveling on university-approved business must have a Pre-Approval in Chrome River for each trip that requires them to be away from home overnight and/or requires them to use commercial transportation. Pre-Approvals are not required for same-day travel without commercial transportation (use of UTA Frontrunner, Trax or bus is excluded from this requirement). The Pre-Approval should be filed at least 10 days prior to travel whenever possible. Pre-Approvals are approved by the designated approver established in Y-Matrix by the college/division controller. The Pre-Approval must be fully approved before travel agents can book travel reservations. The Pre-Approval must also be fully approved before travel occurs.

When traveling in a group, a Pre-Approval must be filed for each employee that will be seeking reimbursement after returning from their trip. For your convenience, Chrome River offers functionality to duplicate a completed Pre-Approval when multiple employees are traveling as a group.

There are five types of Pre-Approvals and Expense Reports in Chrome River:

Individual Travel: An Individual Travel trip involves an employee (not a student employee) who travels on behalf of BYU alone or with others but will be making purchases separately. These trips are less than 30 days long.

Extended Travel: An Extended Travel trip involves an employee (not a student employee) who travels on behalf of BYU alone or with others but making purchases separately. These trips are 30 or more days long.

Group Travel: A Group Travel trip is filed by an employee acting as a group leader of a group of BYU students. Generally, the group leader will incur trip costs for the group on their university credit card and will complete the Travel Expense Report. The group leader can also complete a separate Student Travel expense report linking it to the Group Travel Pre-Approval to reimburse business expenses incurred by a student participant.

Student Travel: A Student Travel trip involves a student who will incur travel expenses personally that will need to be reimbursed. Risk Management needs to approve any Pre-Approvals that involve the following:

• Not using commercial carrier transportation (plane, bus, train, taxi/cab, subway, etc.)
• Using or riding in a personal vehicle
• Driving more than 10 hours in 24-hour period
• Any combination of working, studying, attending class, or other activities will exceed 14 hours in a 24-hour period (Note: driving between the hours of 12:00 a.m. (midnight) and 6:00 a.m. is discouraged unless within fifty miles of the destination).

In such cases an Assumption of Risk form should be attached to the Pre-Approval

Non-Employee Travel: A Non-Employee Travel trip involves travelers who are neither BYU students nor employees, who are traveling by request of the university.

Travel Expense Report

All employee, student, and non-employee expenses for university-approved business must be recorded in a Travel Expense Report in Chrome River within 30 calendar days after the end date of a trip. All trip expenses incurred must have an express business purpose. Travelers must not report personal expenses on the Travel Expense Report. A department designated approver is required to review and approve Travel Expense Reports before any payment can be made.

Travelers must submit electronic images of the original, itemized receipts for each expense exceeding $50 claimed on the Travel Expense Report. All required receipts must show the vendor, transaction date, detailed description of the goods or services purchased, the amount paid, and the form of payment. Corporate charge card slips are generally not acceptable since they do not contain all the required elements of the receipt. Travelers do not need to submit receipts for meals when they are electing to claim per diem. If required original receipts are lost, a traveler must make reasonable efforts to obtain duplicates. If such efforts fail to produce duplicate receipts, the traveler completes the Lost or Missing Receipt Affidavit and submits it with the remainder of their receipts. Both the traveler and their controller must sign the affidavit verifying the legitimacy of the expense. All original receipts and documentation should be retained long enough to verify that the receipt has been properly saved, reviewed, and approved in Chrome River.

Employees functioning as a group leader should book airfare, lodging and other expenses on a university Travel or Corporate card. Upon returning from a group excursion, the group leader must import all travel card transactions into a Travel Expense Report within 30 calendar days.

University credit cards are the preferred method of payment while in travel status. Refer to the university credit card procedures for more information about these cards.

Expense reports are approved by the designated approver established in Y-Matrix by the college/division controller.