UW La Crosse Travel & Expense FAQs

Please see Student and Guest Travel

Yes, the university’s contracted travel agencies can assist with companion/family travel.  However, please keep in mind their primary responsibility is to service university sponsored/business-related travel.  The consultants do not specialize in vacation travel. If your request exceeds their capacity, you will be referred to a vacation/leisure consultant. Also, keep in mind, service fees will apply to personal travel/companions.

It is the responsibility of the hosting department to ensure that all guests of the University are aware of UW Travel Policies. Guests should be provided a copy of the University’s Visitor Travel Guide prior to scheduling travel.  If the guest books outside of policy, please reach out to your campus travel manager to inquire about obtaining an approved Travel Policy Exception.

There are several different types of insurance available to UW Employees.  Please reach out to your Human Resources Representative for more information.

Insurance that is specific to travel –

• Vehicle coverage through the Big Ten contract (Enterprise and National) and State of Wisconsin contract (Hertz)
• CISI – medical insurance required for students who are traveling internationally. UW-Stout and UW-Madison employees are required to register for CISI insurance when traveling abroad. Contact your campus travel manager for more information.

* The University does not pay for or reimburse trip insurance.

We have created a Group Travel Resource page to identify the different needs of groups. Most likely, you will have to work with an agent, as agents are best to assist your group needs. Information on groups can be found in Group Travel under Planning in TravelWIse.

Concur is an online booking tool that University of Wisconsin System employees can use to book university-sponsored individual air, car or hotel reservations. Our contracted travel agency, Fox World Travel, licenses Concur for University Travelers to use. Travelers can manage their itinerary, view changes, and research pricing by using Concur.

Employees with an active Workday profile will be automatically registered for Concur. To sign in, follow the SSO link found on wisconsin.edu/travel. 

We generally advise to only book State Government Rates for the state in which you are an employee. This means to only book state government rates for hotels in Wisconsin. You can also call the hotel to check to see if they will allow you to book the state government rate if you are not an employee of that state. 

 Concur cannot be used for personal travel reservations, unless purchasing business travel combined with personal travel. Cost comparisons may be required when booking air travel.

No. Because of our commitment to duty of care and our relationship with vendors, UW will still require the use of our contracted travel agency partners for all airfare purchases.

No, UW air contracts cannot be used for travel that is 100% personal in nature.   However, when combining personal travel with business travel, UW air contracts can be used.

Yes, travelers can combine personal and business travel and book individual tickets through Fox World Travel. When a traveler elects to combine personal travel days with business travel, a cost comparison may be required. 

Valid Cost Comparisons: Concur or agents from one of the university’s contracted travel agencies must be used for cost comparisons. Because of pricing and availability fluctuations, accurate cost comparisons must be done immediately at the time of booking, in succession, to be valid.

No, companions/family members are not eligible to receive UW contracted airline discounts.

National/Enterprise and Hertz are the contracted suppliers for UW. See: Ground Transportation

Personal use may be added in conjunction with a business trip, either at the beginning of the end of your reservation. Please note additional coverage such as CDW or LDW are not included when reserving a strictly personal rental. The coverage can be added for additional fees. 

View the Personal Use Contracts page for more information.

Users are highly encouraged to book all vehicle rentals through Concur or our contracted travel agency partners as contract details are built into the booking channels.  However, booking directly with a vehicle rental agency is allowed.  When booking outside of Concur/contracted travel agencies, it is the responsibility of the traveler/arranger to make sure the contracted vendors are being used (Enterprise/National and Hertz). 

Verify hours of operation at the location you are renting from.  It is possible that the location is closed at the time you are entering into Concur. 

Note: pick-up and/or drop-off hours may need to be modified to accommodate the location hours of operation.

If you have determined that no in contract rental cars are available, explore other options.  Look into renting from National or Hertz, and if none of our preferred partners have availability you may want to condenser driving your personal vehicle or work with our travel agency to use another vendor. Insurance must be purchased when renting from a non-contract vendor. 

Contact your campus travel manager for assistance in determining the best alternative.

Yes. 

Note: Most Airport locations are open on weekends.

Yes. While we highly recommend using Concur or our contracted travel agencies, policy does allow you to contact the hotel directly (either by phone or on the hotel website) to book your lodging reservation.

No. Third party booking websites are prohibited under the travel policy

Yes.

Third Party bookings are still restricted (such as Expedia and Orbitz).

Please visit our Airbnb page for more information.

Conference lodging should be booked using the link provided with your conference registration or by contacting the conference hotel directly.

Note: Users are highly encouraged to search Concur for the conference hotel(s) as often rates found within Concur are less costly than the conference rate.

We highly encourage you to use UW preferred properties whenever possible. Booking with a preferred property allows the UW System to act as a liaison in the event there is an issue with your stay, and to ensure rates are below the maximum. However, bookings with non-preferred properties will still be reimbursed.

If you are unable to find lodging within a reasonable distance from your location, you are required to provide documentation (i.e. screenshots from Concur) that a lower rate was not available.

Purchase Card transactions will be reconciled with expense reports, as will Corporate Card transactions (also known as Shared Liability card).

Transactions ready to be expensed appear in the worker's Expenses Hub, as well as in the Timely Suggestions area on their Workday home page. Weekly alerts will also be emailed to workers who have open transactions needing to be expensed.

The "UW Credit Card Fraud" expense item is used for this purpose. In general this should be used only when this item has been or will be reported as “fraud” and not something that will ultimately be expensed. It is recommended to have both the “charge” and the “credit” will be on the same expense report to offset, if possible. 
Note: This only reconciles the charge in Workday, this does not replace the required fraud reporting procedures. Refer to the cardholder policy manual for proper fraud reporting procedures.

Each card appears in the worker's profile under the Company Property section. Each card is labeled with the worker's name and the type of card (Purchase Card or Shared Liability Card). There is also a unique 4-digit number listed for each card (this is a unique ID, not the actual last 4 digits of the credit card).

An Expense Data Entry Specialist would be able to submit the expense report on behalf of the terminated employee.

Purchasing Card credits can be reconciled the same as any other Purchasing Card transaction. Shared Liability (Corporate Card) credits cannot be submitted unless there are sufficient positive expenses to offset them (i.e.: users cannot submit an expense report with a net negative amount on their Shared Liability Card). Shared Liability cardholders should contact their Credit Card Administrator to resolve large or old credit balances. Credits cannot be directly linked to the original expense.

All transactions will need to be reconciled in Workday, regardless of fraud or dispute. Disputed transactions can be identified using the additional worktag, "UW Card Transaction Pending Vendor Review/Action" to notify downstream approvers the transaction is being disputed (Additional Worktags > Expenses Reporting). Cardholder must still call US Bank Customer Service to dispute the transaction. When this additional worktag is used, the employee (and initiator if applicable) of the expense report will receive a to-do step once the expense report is approved. The to-do step will request additional context be provided once the dispute has been resolved.

Transactions are loaded into a Workday expense report in USD, regardless of the type of currency that was paid. Cardholders can view the Workday report, "My Expense Transactions" to view the Transaction amount (currency charged) as well as the Billing amount (converted USD amount).

Monthly limits listed in workday in the Account Information area will be correct for all Shared Liability Cards, as they do have a monthly limit. For all Purchase Cards, the limit shown is actually only the two week cycle limit, and not the “monthly limit” as noted. This is a limitation in Workday and cannot be changed at this time. The Transaction Limit amount is correct for both card types.

Example: The tab says 2 transactions, however, 3 credit card transactions are listed. This is because 1 of the transactions has been pulled into an expense report that is in progress and is not available to be pulled into a new expense report. Once the expense report with the credit card transaction has been completed and settled, the transaction will no longer appear on the list.
Additionally, if the pending expense report with the transaction is cancelled prior to being settled and paid, the transaction becomes available to pull into a new expense report.

Alerts and errors appear next to the expense item listed on the left of your screen (alerts as an orange diamond, errors as a red circle). If you then go to the upper right-hand side of your screen and click the orange or red rectangle, you will see what the alert and/or error is. Some nuances: 
1. Most alerts & errors are triggered at the line level telling you there is something wrong with the specific line. Others (ex: if you use a business purpose that is only allowed on spend authorizations) apply to the entire expense report. Those will still fire and have the error message visible through the link at the top-right of the screen, but they will not put an orange diamond or red circle next to any of the individual lines.

2. If the expense line is itemized, you may see an error repeated. Workday, in a way, treats each itemized line as its own expense. For example, if you split the expense into two separate itemized lines, you’ll get 3 errors – once for the “main” expense and once each for the itemized lines.

Once in the itemization area, click the trash can icon on the top right corner. This will cancel the itemization, and/or delete one itemization at a time (will need to repeat this action for multiple splits). Click Done when prompted.

Per Workday Community, Maximum Attachment Size is 30,720 KB (30 MB) and the Maximum Image Size is 10,240 KB (10 MB)

Once the correction is made click elsewhere on the expense report (ex: a different expense line, or the header tab) so that the expense report will refresh. In most cases, the error will disappear after the refresh, however, some soft alerts (orange error) will remain to alert approvers while they are reviewing. Expense reports can be submitted when there are soft alerts, but cannot if the error is a red error. Red errors must be corrected before the expense report can be submitted.

The guidance recommended is to manually add all attendees if the total number is under 25. If over 25, then an attendee list can be attached instead (with the Number of Persons field updated to reflect the total number of attendees). This guidance was discussed with UW System leadership. 
Note: It is advised to enter attendees BEFORE itemizing an expense line, otherwise you will have to enter them multiple times. For student attendees, it is recommended to manually list all for reporting purposes.

There is no minimum or maximum for this field.

Each expense report has a "Business Process" tab that shows the approval history.

To modify an expense report, enter "My Expense Reports" in the search bar > click Actions next to the expense report you'd like to change > choose Edit Expense Report from the dropdown menu > make the necessary changes to the expense report and submit.

Note: You cannot edit an expense report if it has a payment or pending payment applied to it. If the expense report was in progress (in the process of approval) the approval process will restart if the expense report is changed. It may be necessary for the employee and/or the Expense Data Entry Specialist to "re-approve it" when it re-enters the approval process.

To cancel an expense report, enter "My Expense Reports" in the search bar > click Actions next to the expense report you'd like to cancel > choose Cancel Expense Report from the dropdown menu > click OK.

Note: Canceling an expense report is irreversible. You cannot cancel an expense report if it has a payment applied to it.

No, the worker will need to go to their Expenses Hub, then click Expense Reports, and view the status. If it's in draft status, it was never submitted. Expense Reports that have been sent back will be included in a weekly alert as well as an email on Monday mornings. 

There are multiple ways to add a receipt to an expense report.

1. Receipts can be added at the header level or the expense line level in expense reports.

2. Quick expenses are added using the mobile app, may include a receipt, and can be pulled into expense reports at a later date.

3. Receipts can be emailed to Workday from the email address(es) in your employee profile, and will appear as a quick expense that can be pulled into an expense report. Receipts can also be emailed to another employee's Workday profile.

This is correct. Per diem policy is changing with the Workday rollout, and no longer requires a first and last day deduction. 

Workday automatically saves, but to refresh the page, click somewhere else on the page (ex: on another expense line or the attachments tab). There is a Save for Later button at the bottom when entering Expense Lines.

It is somewhat similar - they are called either an External Committee Member (a non-employee) or if they were a candidate, they would have a "shell profile" already in Workday as a candidate or pre hire. The Expense Data Entry Specialist can create expense reports for these classifications (External Committee Member, candidate or pre-hire are the three categories).

As part of travel policy changes related to the Workday rollout, mileage is now one rate. There won't be separate standard, turndown or motorcycle rates.

You will still need to attach a copy of an Oanda currency conversion to your expense report for reimbursements that were originally paid in foreign currency. However, the attachment will not be required when reconciling UW credit card transactions as they are automatically converted when coming into Workday.

The new travel policy only require receipts at $50.01 and above for out of pocket expenses (and shared liability card transactions). For all Purchase card expenses, receipts will always be required.

Expenses incurred on or after March 11th, 2025 are able to be submitted in an expense report until Sept 30th, 2025 without tax penalty. Expenses incurred during this period are not subject to the 90 day Accountable plan policy until Oct 1st, 2025. After October 1st, Accountable plan exceptions are handled via a Spend Authorization. 

This field is the number of people in a room times the number of nights. For example if 2 people shared a room for three nights, the total number of nights private accommodation you should enter is 6. This calculation is what determines if the expense is in policy or over the maximum rate for that location.

If you do accidentally hit “submit” you can go back to your Expenses Hub, find the expense report, click on Actions, and Change your Expense report.

Suggestions for funding assistance when creating a spend authorization or expense report:
1. Try finding it in the FDM Mapping Tool
2. Contact an employee in your department with an Expense Data Entry Specialist role. They can assist you in determining your funding, or they can create the spend authorization and/or expense report on your behalf.

Yes, the decision to allow Foundation related expenses on Pcards was approved by Finance ATP Governance in July of 2022, in addition to Foundation related expenses being paid out of pocket or on shared liability cards (corporate cards). These expenses will be reconciled with an expense report using 5 expense items that are labeled "Foundation". When using any of these expense items, the expense report is routed to a campus Expense Foundation Specialist for approval.


***Foundation Expenses on Pcard- Individuals should work with their Foundation to determine what expenses are eligible for reimbursement and the process for Foundation approval of those expenses. If the Foundation is unwilling to pay for the expense, the cardholder is responsible for paying for this expense out of their own pocket.***

Enter funding on either the expense report header or in the expense line in the following order:

1. Enter the Cost Share Grant ID in the Grant field. (The Cost Share Grant must be the first driver worktag entered on a transaction)

2. Enter the non-sponsored funding source driver worktag in Program, Gift, or Project field

Note: The non-sponsored funding source driver worktag will default the correct related worktags (Fund, Cost Center, Function) on the transaction

Per policy, HIPAA protected research participant costs must not be processed in the Workday Expenses module.

• Payments to HIPAA protected research participants, including the payment of reimbursable travel expenses, are processed via an Ad Hoc payment or Advara.
• Payments to Non HIPAA protected research participants are processed via an Ad Hoc payment.
• Travel expenses for Non HIPAA protected research participants are processed via an expense report.

• Spend authorizations grant permission for future expenses, cash advances, UW official functions, and policy exceptions.
• Future expenses are not limited to future travel, and can include future spending on Purchase cards.
• Cash advances allow the worker to receive the funds in advance of travel.
• Spend Authorizations can be used in place of the Official Functions form, however, the Official Functions form will still be used for purchases outside of the Expenses Module (i.e. Purchase Orders). An approved official functions form can also be attached to an expense report.
• Expenses that occur outside of policy will require approval via a spend authorization which must be attached to the expense report reconciling the out-of-policy expense(s).

Employee As Self (i.e.: anyone can create for themselves) or an Expense Data Entry Specialist can create one on behalf of another employee.

Yes. For example, a worker submits an expense report for travel that was not booked per policy, and the approver sends back the expense report requiring an approved spend authorization be linked (the spend authorization is for approval of the exception to following policy, and to allow for reimbursement). The worker submits a spend authorization for the exception, and it gets approved. The worker can then go back into the expense report that was sent back, link the spend authorization, and resubmit the expense report for approval.

No, only one spend authorization can be linked to an expense report. However, multiple expense reports can be linked to one spend authorization.
For example, a worker has an approved spend authorization for multiple expenses but creates more than one expense report to be reimbursed for those expenses. That spend authorization can be linked to each expense report. While creating the final expense report linking that spend authorization, the worker must check the Final Expense Report for Spend Authorization checkbox.

Yes. When a Spend Authorization (with or without a Cash Advance) is attached to an expense report, the user is prompted to check a box if it is the final expense report for that Spend Authorization.

Out-of-policy expense reports will require an approved Spend Authorization be linked (with Expense Operations Lead approval) to the expense report, to document that approval has been given to proceed with an expense report.

That's correct. That is Workday delivered and can’t be configured and changed. To split funding, enter two separate lines to split into two worktags.

Note: Spend authorizations with a cash advance do not allow for multiple funding on the same spend authorization (it will not be able to be submitted).

To cancel a spend authorization, enter "My Spend Authorizations" in the search bar > click Actions next to the spend authorization you'd like to cancel > choose Cancel Spend Authorization from the dropdown menu > click OK.

Note: The action is only available if the spend authorization is in Draft status or is In Progress.
You cannot cancel a spend authorization if it:

• Is Closed, Canceled, marked as Worker Paid, or associated with an uncanceled expense report.
• Is associated with an In Progress or Completed settlement run.

The Expense Data Entry Specialist (EDES) has the ability to create expense reports & spend authorizations on behalf of other employees and non-employees. EDES's are required to be trained before receiving this role. Unlike SFS, EDES's are not assigned to specific individuals; once assigned the role, an EDES can create spend authorizations & expense reports for all employees and non-employees. Additionally, the EDES can request the setup of a non-employee (aka External Committee Member). EDES's cannot approve expense reports or spend authorizations they created themselves; the Cost Center Manager is used as a backup in that situation.

Central Audit, also known as the Expense Partner pool, reviews expense reports for UW-level policy compliance. In most cases, they are the first level of review for an expense report.

When a spend authorization or expense report is created by a worker who is also the Driver Worktag Manager for the funding entered, the Cost Center Manager will approve. If the campus/division opted to map multiple Cost Center Managers at a higher level in the hierarchy, it will go to “all” Cost Center Managers and each will have to approve.
Note: This may not be the same for all business processes in Workday, as workflows will vary.