REVIEWED August 6, 2006
Quick Guide to the Auditor’s Requirements
Auditors can be very picky. The following guide will help you deal with this unfortunate but sometimes necessary professional characteristic:
1.Duty station (your permanent location) is specified on the travel expense voucher (i..e., the Ammerman campus if you work at Ammerman, etc.)
2.Original signatures are provided, including yours and those of your approvers
3.Signatures are dated and dates are timely
4.Signatures of approvers are authorized and have signatures on file with the department of audit and control
5.Start and stop times of all travel are specified for each period of travel for travel during the day and, for multi-day travel, for the start and stop times
6.Destinations (i.e., the location) are specific
7.Commutation deductions (i.e., the distance to/from hour home to your workplace) are subtracted from travel commencing or ending in your home location, except for your regular days off, for each trip to which this criteria applies, including conferences and conventions.
8.For multi-destination travel, the stops along the journey are specified and the mileages between each are specified
9.Conference and/or training reimbursement claims are accompanied by an approved conference/training form and are dated before travel commences
10.Mileage claims conform to the county’s mileage chart for travel within Suffolk County and use the Expedia.com web-site (select Business Tools, then Maps to access the mileage chart) for travel outside the county and choose shortest). There is an alternative, which is to specifically document the exact mileage on your odometer, but this must apply to all travel on the same reimbursement form and cannot exceed the county’s guidelines by an amount that must be calculated for each leg of a journey
11.Claims should be filed monthly in the case of general travel and mileage reimbursement but will only be processed when submitted within three months of end of the month for which reimbursement is requested. In the case of contractual conference travel, claims must be filed by the end of the year in which contractual travel occurs.
12.Reimbursement requests conform to cost estimates made when travel was authorized, so for contractual and business travel, an amount should be budgeted for miscellaneous expenses (i.e., insert types), but the auditor will require that your authorization form, which is an estimated cost, be adjusted to confirm to how you actually spent money, where expenses exceed your initial line-specific estimates . . . Yes, this is ridiculous, but that’s how the auditor’s interpreting the guidelines
13.Travel requests are authorized in advance
14.Individuals claim reimbursement for only their travel related costs, and not the costs of others, but for room expenses you can share a room, if your traveling partner’s packet and yours include a statement that you’ve paid/been paid for the amount due
15.Individuals who use a post office mailing address must note their ‘community’ of residence when mileage reimbursement is claimed and will be reimbursed for mileage to/from that place
16.Expenses are and must be necessary and reasonable for your journey, which allows some minimal room for discretion when traveling (i.e., if your trip is to location not served by common carrier, you can rent an automobile; if the total of expenses for transportation in a conference site are less if you and a traveling companion rent a car rather than take separate conveyances, etc., you may be reimbursed for a rental vehicle; but caution is advised, for auditors have been known to consider their judgments more reasonable than those of travelers’