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Travel and Finance Guidelines

Travel

Planning to travel in the coming months? Northeastern requires all students, faculty, and staff to register their travel, please submit your travel plans to the Global Safety Support Network. The university recommended travel agency is Egencia.  

  • In accordance with the university travel policy, all personnel should travel in economy classTraveling in Business Class requires the provost’s approval, so be sure to receive confirmation in advance. 
  • Note that booking travel accommodations for guests, students, or non-full-time employees is allowed, but booking travel accommodations for full-time employees is not allowed. If you are booking for one of the other categories, please list their name, reason for booking, and relation to person for whom travel was booked for.  
  • If you or the person you are booking travel for has a medical condition that requires additional accommodation, please attach a doctor’s note to the report. 
  • Accommodations should be at a reasonable cost, comfortable and convenient to the place of business. For travel within the Northeastern Network, please use the local campus as a resource for preferred hotels with negotiated rates where applicable. 
  • Canceled Trips: It is the responsibility of the employee to cancel all reservations and contact the appropriate agency or organization for refunds of any expenditure prepaid by the University (e.g., conference fees, airfare, etc.). All refunds must be returned to the University for proper credit. 
  • Carefully consider whether to use travel credit. If travel credit is used, you must provide proof of payment for the credit used. Airline issued credit like Southwest LUV Vouchers and personal points are not reimbursable. 

Planning a campus visit?

Prior approval is required if you plan to go to Mills College at Northeastern University. Community members looking to travel to the Oakland campus should fill out the Oakland Campus Travel form. At this time, prior approval to visit other campus locations is not required.

While out on trips, make sure your receipts are all set for Concur reconciliation: 
 

  • Airline receipts should show the travel itinerary that includes name of traveler, dates of travel, airports, seat class, breakout of taxes and fees, and proof of payment.  
  • Hotel folios should show no balance due or proof of payment, so please make sure you get a receipt of payment from the hotel.  
  • Food/refreshments for travel and meetings:  
  • To minimize food expenditures for meetings, every effort should be made to schedule meetings during customary business hours.  Meal expenses may be reimbursed for lunch at meetings regarded as an atypical event.  Meals or beverages should not be served at regular staff meetings, meetings where the purpose is to conduct normal daily business, or where meetings are less than two hours in length.  
  • If a corporate card is used to pay for meals, then it is recommended that the senior-most employee use his/her card to pay. 
  • Restaurant purchases should include an itemized receipt of items purchased and a final receipt that includes tip (when applicable) and your signature. 

Combined university business with other travel:  

  • Reimbursement for only the business portion of the trip is allowable. The dates of the meeting/event and one day before and after are allowable for business purposes. 
  • When submitting the expense report, please include a quote for the business portion of the trip. If the addition of personal travel increases the cost of the business travel, the employee will be responsible for funding the difference. 

For resources on travel guidance, see the below links: 

Tax Exemption 

Northeastern university is exempt from sales tax for the state of Massachusetts. Additionally, NU is sales tax exempt for certain other states, if the state is not listed on the below linked website, Northeastern is not sales tax exempt for that state. See here for state tax exemption forms

Concur University AMEX Cards

When it comes to reconciling expenses, there are a couple guidelines to adhere to. While it is best to use the university provided green travel AMEX card or blue statement AMEX card, sometimes personal cards are needed. If you use a personal card, please provide proof of payment with a receipt that includes similar language to; payment received, paid, or no balance due. A list of reimbursable expenses can be found here. 

For university AMEX cards, please keep in mind the following points that affect both the green travel card and blue statement card: 

  • Expense reports should be reconciled monthly 
  • For expenses $75 and over, itemized receipts are required, including meals 

For the green travel AMEX card, there are a few differences in reconciling expenses: 

  • If traveling frequently within a month, individual trips should be itemized with all associated expenses incurred for that trip only. This could include airfare, hotel, taxi, meals, conference registration, mileage, and misc. travel expenses. 
  • The expense report header should be appropriately named to reflect trip. For example, “NSF conference,” “Mills campus visit,” “NU London campus visit,” “Roux visit.” 
  • If applicable, Business Class prior approval documentation should be attached to the report.  
  • If future travel is booked in advance, for example airfare or a hotel, you can create a report and hold that expense until travel has been completed. This ensures that all associated trip expenses will be submitted collectively upon travel completion. 
  • Other miscellaneous expenses should be batched on one monthly report. This could include taxis for local university business, local business-related meals, and subscriptions. 
  • Please note local meals should be listed as “meals under 10 ppl” or “meals over 10 ppl” – not travel meals. 

For the blue statement AMEX card, there are a few points to note in reconciling expenses: 

  • All expenses are batched into one report including travel. 
  • If applicable, Business Class prior approval should be attached to the report. 
  • The Statement Report header should remain as named.

Should you have any questions or issues with your AMEX card, you can use the contact information below: 

American Express Numbers:
US: 1-800-528-2122
Non US/International: 623-492-8427
Account Protection Services/Fraud prevention: 800-824-9289 & press 0# to get connected directly

For those new to Concur, you can view this university training. Additional resources can be found on the Finance website, or in Concur by clicking on ‘Help’ and then ‘Training’ in the top right-hand corner of the platform. 

Location

110 Churchill Hall 360
Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02115

(617) 373–2000

Do you have questions for the Office of the Provost? Please reach out to us.



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