Business and Travel Expense Policies

Overview of Administrative Guide Memo

The university outlines its guiding principles and the IRS regulations for business and travel expenses in Administrative Guide Policy 5.4.2: Business and Travel Expenses. In summary:

• Guiding Principles
  • Supporting University Travelers: In

     order for Stanford to be able to provide support to its faculty, staff, postdoctoral scholars and students when they are traveling on university-sponsored business, the university requires the use of a centralized booking program as described in the Administrative Guide Policy.

  • Stewardship of Resources: Individuals using university resources for business or travel expenses and/or are purchasing items to be owned by Stanford, share the responsibility of ensuring that these resources are used appropriately, support the university mission and comply with university policies, applicable laws and regulations and sponsor and donor restrictions. Individuals are expected to spend appropriately and expenses must be reasonable and necessary. Departments may uphold more restrictive guidance than the university at local discretion.
• IRS Regulations: The university reimburses individuals under the IRS Accountable Plan when the IRS regulations are met. Under this plan, the reimbursement is not taxable as income to the employee, as long as the expense has a business connection and was submitted in a timely manner.
  • For any transactions not cleared through an expense reimbursement within 60 days, the payee is subject to tax reporting for the entire amount. If you would like to request an exception from tax reporting based on circumstances such as a family crisis or an extended absence, please submit a support request to the Financial Support Center; exceptions are granted on a case-by-case basis.

Travel and business expenses that do not reflect good stewardship of university resources, are found to benefit the individual at the expense of the university and/or are deemed excessive or fraudulent will be subject to further review by the appropriate office (e.g., Office of Chief Risk Officer or School/Unit Office), as outlined in Administrative Guide Policy 3.5.1: Financial Irregularities.

Funding Source  

A key consideration in the proper stewardship of university resources is ensuring that the funding source is appropriate to use for the expense. Funding sources such as individual or corporate donors, government agencies, non-government sponsors and tuition have varying restrictions for their use. The federal government has mandated that no alcohol may be charged as either a direct or indirect expense of federally sponsored projects. Consequently, alcohol cannot be charged to a federal grant or contract account under any circumstances. 

Business and travel expenses that will be charged to restricted or sponsored awards, including costs of lodging, meals and incidental expenses, must be reasonable, allowable, necessary to the award and consistent with university policies. For example, the use of the per diem method is required when travel meal expenses will be charged to a sponsored award. Certain expenditures, such as business entertainment, alcohol and eligible business-class airfare, may be incurred within policy for university business or travel, and may be charged to an unrestricted account, but may not be charged directly to restricted or sponsored awards.

University-Sponsored Travel

Per Administrative Guide Policy 5.4.2, university-sponsored travel is defined as when the university pays directly or reimburses individuals for travel expenses that are necessary and appropriate to conduct university business. This includes the use of any funding source for which the university has financial responsibility and accountability, including operating budgets, donor gifts, federally-sponsored grants and awards, and any other restricted or unrestricted fund. Student and postdoctoral scholar travel that is directly related to their individual course of study, or for which academic credit may be awarded, is considered university-sponsored travel, even if the travel is funded via their base financial support.

University-sponsored travel may occur within or outside of the local area. Travel is considered outside of the local area when the destination is 50 miles or more one way from the traveler’s home or Stanford’s historic campus, whichever is greater. This definition is applicable to some travel expense policies, for example, hotel lodging reimbursement, where the university will only pay for hotel lodging expenses when the trip is outside of the local area.

Employee Travel to a Stanford Work Location

For employees in a hybrid work arrangement, travel between an employee’s telecommuting worksite and their Primary Stanford Work Location is considered part of an employee’s normal commute and associated expenses are not reimbursable. For details, see Administrative Guide Policy 2.1.20: Hybrid (Telecommuting) Work Arrangements

For employees in a remote work arrangement whose residence is within the defined 10-county area*, travel to a Stanford Work Location will not be reimbursed because the remote arrangement is at the employee’s request and there is space available for the employee to work on campus. For Remote employees outside of the 10-county area, Stanford will reimburse expenses for occasional, required travel to a Stanford Work Location as long as the travel is necessarily incurred and the employee receives prior approval by the employee’s department/manager. In these instances, the guidelines for booking and reimbursement of business travel apply. For details, see Administrative Guide Policy 2.1.21 Remote Work Arrangements.

*The 10-county area includes all of the following counties: Santa Clara County, San Mateo County, San Francisco County, Alameda County, Contra Costa County, Marin County, Napa County, Sonoma County, Solano County, or Santa Cruz County.

Split or Partially Funded Travel

When travel expenses for Stanford faculty, staff, postdoctoral scholars or students will be shared by Stanford University and one or more external organizations, even if only a minority of the travel expenses are sponsored by Stanford, the trip is considered split.

In terms of the booking policy, split travel is considered university-sponsored travel and must be purchased through a Stanford Travel booking channel following the Business and Travel Expense Policies detailed here and in Administrative Guide Policy 5.4.2.

If it is not easy to separate out the costs that will be covered by the external party, the Stanford Travel Card may be used to pay for the total cost of the trip, then Stanford must be reimbursed by the traveler or travel arranger for the external party portion. See How To Return Personal Expenses Charged to a Travel Card.

Any portion of travel that Stanford pays for must follow Stanford Travel policies and guidelines described on this page.

Fully Externally-sponsored Travel

When an outside institution or entity asks Stanford faculty, staff, postdoctoral scholars or students to travel on that organization’s behalf and provides full payment for those travel expenses, the trip is considered fully externally-sponsored, also referred to as third party travel.

Stanford University resources may not be used to book, purchase or reimburse expenses for fully externally-sponsored travel. In these instances, the use of the Stanford Travel Card and advances is prohibited, and travel arrangements may not be booked via Stanford Travel booking channels.

Personal Travel

When a personal component of travel is added to a business trip, the university will only pay for or reimburse the costs of the business component. The charge that would have been incurred without that personal component must be documented through a fare comparison at the time of booking in order to appropriately process the reimbursement.

The Travel Card may be used to pay for trips that include a component of personal travel that may not be easily separated from the booking, but it may not be used to purchase trips that are exclusively personal. In cases where the Travel Card is used to purchase trips with a personal component, the individual is responsible for reimbursing the university for the extra cost.