Add Daily Allowance Expenses to a Report

Some companies allow employees to spend a specific amount per day on living and travel expenses associated with work. The amount usually varies by location and is defined by government guidelines. Chrome River's Expense Daily Allowance feature lets customers track actual spend against allowable spend via allowance line items on expense reports. While Chrome River’s Per Diem Expenses feature gives users a lump daily sum, Expense Daily Allowance only reimburses users for the actual amount spent on meals and lodging, and it tracks any overages.

For example, if you are allowed $100 per day for meals and spend $10 on breakfast, $10 on lunch, and $150 on dinner, the system will fully reimburse breakfast and lunch but show that only $80 of dinner is within the allowance, with a $70 overage displayed on the expense report. Consult your Chrome River administrator to learn how your organization has chosen to handle overages.

Additionally, allowances may be used across separate reports for the same user over the same dates. Complete details of all reports for that date may be viewed on a single Allowance Details screen.

Create Daily Allowance

1. On the Add Expense screen, click CREATE NEW and click the DAILY ALLOWANCE WIZARD expense type in the mosaic.

2. Enter the details of the expense, including the full address in the Location field and Allocation, and click ADD TO PREVIEW.

3. The preview shows you the allowable spend for each day and lets you select deductibles, if necessary. Click APPLY.

4. An Allowance Summary will now appear in the report's header preview.

5. Click VIEW DETAILS in the Allowance Summary for complete information on the allowances for your selected location.

• The top section displays the total Daily Meals and Hotel amounts for the entire trip in the Allowance column.

• The bottom section shows the sum of the Daily Meals and Hotel amounts per day in the Allowance column.

6. Click EDIT ALLOWANCES to change the location or date; you will not be able to enter the amount.

Once you have created allowances via the Daily Allowance Wizard, you may add line items to your report and apply the daily allowance to them.

Add Meal Expenses

1. Create a new line item for the appropriate meal and check the APPLY DAILY ALLOWANCE box.

• Note that your organization may choose to automatically apply Daily Allowance without requiring you to check the box.

2. The amount will itemize in the Daily Allowance section to show you how much of the allowance will be used.

• Note that alcohol is never reimbursed by Daily Allowance, so it will display as an overage. Any alcohol expenses you enter must be paid for out of pocket.

• If your organization has disabled the ability to add alcohol expenses, you will not see the Alcohol, Tax/Tip or Food fields at all.

3. If you enter a Tax/Tips amount, it will be split based on the ratio of food to alcohol.

Click SAVE.

4. When you add your next meal expense for the day, you will only be reimbursed up to the Daily Allowance amount.

• In the example pictured, the expense owner only had $35.65 in remaining allowance for meals that day, so $4.35 of a $40 dinner will be considered an overage.

5. Click VIEW DETAILS to see how the amounts are being calculated.

Add Lodging Expenses

1. Create a Hotel expense and click ITEMIZE. As you create each applicable itemization, check the APPLY DAILY ALLOWANCE box.

• Note that your organization may choose to automatically apply Daily Allowance without requiring you to check the box.

2. Depending on your organization's configuration, you may only be able to apply Daily Allowance to Lodging, or you may be able to use the allowance for multiple hotel itemization types, like WiFi, parking or laundry. Additionally, there are multiple ways your organization may configure Room Tax. Consult your Chrome River administrator for more details on entering Room Tax.

3. For each day's Lodging itemization, you will only be reimbursed up to the Daily Allowance amount.

• In the example pictured, the expense owner only had $370.28 in remaining allowance for lodging that day, so $29.72 of a $400 hotel room rate will be considered an overage.

4. Click VIEW DETAILS to see how the amounts are being calculated.

Edit Daily Allowance

You may edit the Daily Allowance location, dates, deductibles and any other details except the amounts.

1. Click VIEW DETAILS in the Allowance Summary.

2. Then click EDIT ALLOWANCES.

3. You will be returned to the Daily Allowance Wizard to make changes to any details except the amounts.

4. If the amounts change as a result of your edits, you will receive a violation message on the affected line item(s). You will be unable to submit the report until you confirm the changes or correct the violation.

5. In the Daily Allowance section, click CONFIRM to accept the changes.

Alternatively, if your organization requires you to split allocations when overages occur, you will need to manually adjust the those allocations according to the new Daily Allowance amount.