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Add German Per Diem Expenses to a Report

Per Diem expenses for organizations who do business in Germany are calculated differently from per diem expenses in other countries. The German Per Diem Wizard is designed to automatically recognize continuous trips that include multiple destinations so that users will receive full per diem reimbursement amounts on days that they travel to a different location, rather than the lower reimbursement amounts received on start and end travel days. The wizard also makes it easy to handle situations like border crossing, overnight stays and working in multiple locations on a single day.

Per Diem Wizard

On the Add Expenses screen, click CREATE NEW and select the Per Diem Wizard from the mosaic. Your company may have created this as a subcategory under a broader expense category, like Meals or Mileage.

If you have already created per diem entries for previous trips on the same expense report, you will be able to preview these in the Per Diem Wizard.

1. Enter the Start Date and End Date of the trip, including the exact start and end times. For trips with multiple segments, enter the start and end dates for one segment at a time. The number of days of your trip/segment will be automatically calculated in the Days box. The Overnight Stay check box will appear for any trip/segment that spans two or more days.

2. Enter the Business Purpose (reason) for your trip. Depending on your organization's rules, a Description of the trip may be optional.

3. Next, you must enter the exact address of the location you traveled to. You may search for it in the location-selector drop-down one of two ways:

  • Begin typing the full address and select the correct one from the suggestions.
  • Begin typing the name of the location or institution (e.g., LAX airport or Disneyland) and select the correct one from the suggestions.

Depending on the location you choose, the Rate Location may automatically populate or you may be required to select the correct location from a drop-down.

4. Enter the Allocation that will apply to all entries created with these details.

5. Click ADD TO PREVIEW to see the entry you created in the Per Diem Rates Preview screen.

  • Note: This does not save your entry as a line item. You must click APPLY in the Per Diem Rates Preview screen to save entries as line items.

Per Diem Rates Preview

Here you will see the dates, times and location for each entry.

  • Delete: Click the trash can icon to remove an entry.
  • Edit: Click the pencil icon to edit an entry.
  • Deductibles: Click the arrow to the left of the date to check off per diem items for which you do not need to be reimbursed. For example, if you did not use your per diem to pay for lunch because it was provided at the conference you attended, checking the "Lunch" box will reduce your reimbursement by the amount that your company allows for lunch.
  • Clear All: If you need to make a change that affects all entries, click CLEAR ALL to delete all the entries and start over in the Per Diem Wizard.

When you are satisfied with the entries you have created, click APPLY to save them to the expense report as line items.

Edit Per Diem Items

Once you have created and saved an entry as a line item, the only way to edit it is to return to the Per Diem Wizard. Select the item and click VIEW IN WIZARD in the preview.

Once you are in the Per Diem Wizard, you may delete or edit individual entries. Note that, under certain circumstances, you may not be able to delete or edit an entry because it would affect the logic of all the other entries. In this situation, you must click CLEAR ALL entries and start over.

Overnight Stay

The Overnight Stay check box is used for German Per Diem trips of two or more days to create one continuous entry. The box is checked by default when you create a multi-day entry.

Unchecking the Overnight Stay box allows you to document commuter trips where you don't sleep over, creating individual entries for each day, rather than a continuous group of entries.

  • For example, if you traveled to another location to work but returned home each day to sleep, you would uncheck the Overnight Stay box when creating your per diem expense.

Overnight Stay Box Checked

Overnight Stay Box Unchecked

Unchecking the Overnight Stay box also allows you to merge a two-day trip without an overnight stay into a single day or remove a day if the trip is longer than two days. This type of trip will only be created if the start time of the first day is later than 16:00 and the end time of the last day is earlier than 08:00. If the total number of hours for a day is below eight, a 0.00 amount will be calculated. Otherwise, a half-day rate will be calculated.

For multi-day trips with no overnight stay where the pre-midnight portion is longer than the post-midnight portion, the last day of the trip will be discarded.

  • For example, if you worked from 17:00 to 04:00 every day of your trip, the first day of your trip (on which you worked from 17:00 to 23:59) will be counted but the last day (on which you worked from 00:00 to 04:00) will be discarded.

Conversely, if the post-midnight portion of your working hours is longer than the pre-midnight portion, the first day of the trip will be discarded.

Multiple Locations on One Day

The German Per Diem Wizard allows you to enter multiple working locations for a single day, but you will only be reimbursed at the rate of the longest entry for that day. However, all locations will display in the preview for your reference, with a 0.00 rate for all the earlier entries.

Border Crossing

The Border Crossing section of the Per Diem Wizard will be activated when the following three conditions are met:

  • The trip is two or more days.
  • The Overnight Stay box is checked.
  • Travel is to a country outside of Germany.

You will need to enter the local date at which you reached your destination, and the local date at which you departed from the destination.

Note that border-crossing entries may only be created as new entries. If you originally created another type of entry by accident, you will need to click CLEAR ALL and start a new entry in order to select a border crossing.

1. Select the date on which you arrived at your destination (i.e., the address you entered in the Location field).

  • For example, if your business plans took you to the U.S. via Canada over multiple days, select the day you arrived in the U.S.

2. If you select any option other than Same Day, you will be required to select your method of travel.

3. If you only took an airplane to the final destination (including any layovers), then select Air Travel Only. If you used multiple modes of transport—for example, you got off the plane in one city and then traveled to a different city by car as your final destination—select Other. You will then be required to enter the name of the last country you were in at 23:59 on the day before you arrived at your final destination

Examples

  • If you landed in Toronto, Canada at 17:59 on Aug. 19 and arrived in Buffalo, New York by car at 20:15 on Aug. 19, the last country you were in on Aug 19 was the US.
  • If you landed in Toronto, Canada at 17:59 on Aug. 19 but crossed the Canada-US border after midnight and arrived in Buffalo, New York by car at 1:20 on Aug. 20, the last country you were in on Aug 19 was Canada.

4. Now select the day on which you departed the place where the business activity occurred. Depending on how long it took you to get home, this may not be the same as the last day of your trip.

5. If you select any option other than Same Day, you will be required to select your method of travel.

6. If you only took an airplane back to Germany (including any layovers), then select Air Travel Only. If you used multiple modes of transport—for example, you got off the plane in one city and then traveled to a different city by car—select Other. You will then be required to select the date on which you arrived back in Germany, even if you did not arrive at your final destination on that date.

Three-Month Rule

Germany's Three-Month Rule dictates that per diem becomes taxable after a user has worked for three months at the same address continuously (defined as having no interruption longer than 28 consecutive days).

For customers affected by the Three-Month Rule, Chrome River can automatically determine whether the three-month period has ended for users and then trigger specific business rules for their per-diem expenses, depending on how your organization would like to handle them.

Partner Users

An optional feature of German Per Diem is the ability to distinguish certain users as "partners" in order to calculate the different tax obligations that apply to partners vs. regular employees. Your organization may request to have this feature activated. For users who are partners (as identified via authorized-user rules), no deductions are applied to the Line Item Pay Me amount. Note that the system still records the deduction so that the amount may be allocated to a different line item during export.

Returned German Per Diem Expenses

If a German Per Diem expense you submitted is returned by an approver, the Per Diem Wizard opens to allow you to make changes. Note that you will not be able to add new line items to a returned expense.

Because all German Per Diem line items must be returned together, the approver's comment will only appear on the entry he or she rejected so that you may easily see where correction is required.

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