About the Travel Reimbursement

The main purpose of the Travel Reimbursement (TR) eDoc is to reimburse travel expenses related to official university business. Reimbursements can be issued before, during, and/or after a trip has been completed. A Travel Reimbursement payment will be made to the traveler via a linked, auto-approved Disbursement Voucher (DV). Therefore, once a TR is fully approved, the Kuali Financial System generates the auto-approved DV to issue a check or direct deposit to the employee traveler or group leader.

In KFS, the Travel Reimbursement eDoc is a kind of Travel & Entertainment Management (TEM) document. Other types of TEM documents include: Entertainment Reimbursement (ENT), Travel Authorization (TA), and Moving and Relocation Reimbursement (RELO).

Before you start creating TR eDocs in KFS, please be aware of the following key facts.

You can Reimburse Travel Expenses Pre-Trip

One way to manage prepaid travel expenses is to process a reimbursement in advance of a trip, including airfare, registration fees, and payments to hotels requiring a deposit. All of these expenses can be included in a Travel Reimbursement (TR) document for a Pre-Trip reimbursement.

Types of Payees

Employee Only Employees with active appointments in UCPath can access KFS and TEM. This includes Contingent Workers and Students who are active Employees. Students who do not have an active appointment in UCPath cannot access KFS. Every employee must set up a TEM Profile in order to get reimbursed. View the TEM Profile Guide.
Vendor Anyone who is not an employee and not a student would need to be onboarded as a Vendor into UCI's Vendor Onboarding System: PaymentWorks.
One-Time Payee or Student Anyone who is not an employee or a vendor can be paid as a One-Time Payee. This includes faculty who are traveling and do not have access to approve electronically and employees who are disabled and cannot approve electronically. Students who are not employees should be paid using the One-Time Payee or Student feature.

Importing Charges from Corporate and CTS Cards

If the Employee Payee has used their Corporate Card for expenses, Arrangers can look up the traveler's expenses and import them into a Travel Reimbursement (TR) or Entertainment Reimbursement (ENT) eDoc.

If the Arranger has used their CTS Card (ghost card) to pay for travel expenses for a traveler, the Arranger can look up their own CTS Card and import the expenses into a TEM eDoc. View TEM Imported Card Charges for instructions.

TR Processors and Approvers

People in the following roles are involved in processing and approving travel reimbursements:

  • Initiator
  • Payee
  • Fiscal Officer
  • Accounting Reviewer
  • Travel Accounting

Please visit workflow and adhoc routing for workflow details. All employees who are in the route log of the TR will receive email notifications when the TR eDoc is in their action list.

Business Rules

  • One Chart Code: For each TR eDoc, only one Chart Code (IR-Irvine or MC-Medical Center) can be used. The Chart Code is defined in the Trip Information section of the Trip Overview tab, and only Accounts under that Chart Code can be used in the document. For example, if the Chart Code IR is in the Trip Information section, only KFS Accounts under Chart Code IR can be used in the Accounting Lines.
  • Object Codes: After expenses have been entered and the eDoc has been saved, the Summary by Object Code tab will automatically populate with the object code(s) that should be used in the accounting lines. Object codes are populated based on the expense type(s) that are entered into the eDoc. Using an object code that is NOT displayed in the Summary by Object Code tab will cause an accounting lines error.
  • Honoraria payments to vendors must be processed using a Disbursement Voucher. Travel Reimbursements cannot be used to process Honoraria Payments.
  • Scanning Supporting Documentation: The Image Scanning tab in the TR eDoc includes three options for handling supporting documents. You can use one or any combination of these options:
    • Upload supporting documentation from your computer
    • Link to scanned information on another document
    • Send the coversheet and supporting documentation to central Scanning

When processing Travel Reimbursements and Entertainment Reimbursements, it is important that documents are not uploaded to the Notes and Attachments tab. Documents in the Notes and Attachments can not have sensitive or personal information redacted.

Please visit Accounting's Reference Guide to Required Supporting Documents.

Exceptional Approval

Travel Accounting's Additional and Exceptional Approvals for Travel, Meetings, and Entertainment has detailed information regarding exceptional approvals.