Per Diem Rates Admin Screen

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 may be defined by government guidelines. Users can add a per diem line item to their expense reports in order to be reimbursed. The Per Diem Rates screen allows administrators to manage their organization's rates for specific locations.

View Per Diem Rates

Click ADMIN SETTINGS > RATES & LOCATIONS > PER DIEM RATES.

Use the drop-down menu to select a rate table for a specific location. Note that only those countries and cities defined in your organization's Per Diem Locations list will appear.

To narrow large lists of rates, use the search box to find the desired rate by country, state/province or city.

You can group the results by dragging individual column headers into the blue bar at the top.

• Region: Inside the continental US (“conus”) or outside the continental US (“oconus”).
• Effective Date: All government rates have an Effective Date of the first day of the year. Certain cities may have multiple seasonal rates that apply for portions of the year, while other cities have just one season spanning the entire year.
• Custom: "False" indicates a standard rate. "True" indicates a custom rate created by your organization.

Copy and Edit a Rate

Only custom per diem rates may be edited. To effectively edit a government per diem rate by creating a custom rate based on it, you will need to copy it.

1. Select the desired government rate and click COPY.

2. The copy will be found at the bottom of the rate list. After you uncheck the box next to the rate you copied, you will be able to click EDIT when you select the new rate.

3. You may edit the rate's Effective Date and the amounts for each expense type. When you have completed your changes, click SAVE.

Upload Custom Per Diem Rates

Customers who have configured custom per diem rates and enabled Per Diem Rate Upload and Download via Access Permissions may upload their own per diem rate changes.

1. On the Per Diem Rates admin screen, click IMPORT.

2. On the Per Diem Rate Import screen, click DOWNLOAD TEMPLATE to download your organization's current custom rates and use them as a template for the changes.

3. Now click SELECT FILE,  navigate to the edited template file, and click IMPORT.

Create a New Rate

You may create a new per diem rate for an existing location with defined regions.

1. Select the rate location from the drop-down menu and click NEW.

2. On the Select Location screen, choose the region, country, state (if applicable) and city, then click NEXT.

• CONUS: Region is inside the continental US
• OCONUS: Region is outside the continental US

3. Enter the date the rate takes effect and the amounts for each category. Then click SAVE.

Delete a Custom Rate

Only custom per diem rates may be deleted.

1. Select the desired custom rate and click DELETE.

2. You will be asked to verify the deletion. Click DELETE.

Limit Use of Lodging Amount for Meals

Customers who include the Lodging Amount in the total Per Diem may set a cap on the amount of Lodging per diem that may be used for meals.

By default, if users exceed the allotted Breakfast, Lunch and/or Dinner per diem amounts, the overage is taken from the Lodging amount. Your organization may choose to cap the amount of Lodging per diem that may be applied to overages on meals.

• For example, if you allow $250 for Lodging, you could prevent users from applying any of that amount to their meal overages. Or perhaps you would allow only $10 or $50.

If you are interested in taking advantage of this feature, please open a case with the Chrome River Help Desk to have the amount set in your Expense Per Diem rate sheet.

Enable Per Diem Rates Screen and Features

An administrator with Super Admin permissions may grant user access to the Per Diem Rates screen and its various functions via the Access Permissions admin screen.

See Access Permissions Admin Screen for complete details on permissions, grants and policies.