I am looking to identify best practices for administering team travel cash advances.

At St. John's University, our coaches submit pre-trips (travel & expense forms) requesting cash advances for meals. Upon return they reconcile the advance by providing receipts and cash if applicable.

Any suggestions would be very helpful.

Thank you for your assistance.

Vanderbilt recently promulgated the attached policy for cash advances. Hope it is helpful to you. Thanks!

The purpose of this policy is to ensure timely and accurate processing of advance requests for student athletic department employees.

1. All requests for cash advances should be made on a green travel authorization form. This form should be filled out as completely as possible, and signed by the traveler who is requesting the advance. A breakdown of expected expenses should be written on the green authorization sheet or attached to it.
2. The travel authorization form should be Authorized by the relevant Sports Director and submitted to the business office at least two weeks before you need the check to arrive in the business office. Sport Director advance requests should be given to Patricia Marett for approval using the same time frame as other employees.
3. Advance requests should be limited to per diem amounts, and any other miscellaneous cash expenses. Employees should not receive advances for hotel room expenses, gas expenses, car rental expenses, or any other expenses that could be paid with a credit card. Some expenses such as Hotel rooms can be prepaid with a P-card. Where this is not possible, travelers should use their personal credit cards, or their corporate American Express card to pay for as many expenses as possible. These credit card expenses can then be submitted to the business office on a Travel Expense Report for reimbursement.
4. Employees are accountable for their own expenses, and must file their own Expense Reports. Advanced monies should only be used for expenses for the requesting traveler. All other travelers should request their own travel advance, or separately file a travel expense report for their own reimbursement.
• Exceptions to this rule are team travel, where the coach can request per diem amounts for the team. Signatures for all team members receiving per diem should be obtained by the coach passing out the per diem money, and attached to the corresponding travel report.
5. Any unused travel advance money should be submitted to the business office immediately after returning from the trip. A travel report should be filed with the business office no later than ten days after returning from the trip. Failure to submit reports on a timely basis may result in subsequent denial of future advance requests.
6. Any advance that has not been accounted for within 45 days of return, the University may deduct the outstanding balance of the advance from his or her payroll check. The traveler agrees to this condition by signing the travel authorization form.

At Purdue, we do it the same way. Further, we don't let them take out another advance until they have reconciled any outstanding advance. If it's a situation where they are going to have two team trips only a day or two apart, we tell them to take out one advance covering both trips and reconcile that before getting another one.

Maryland's policy on cash advances is very similar to Vanderbilt's. However, we cannot use the University P-Card for travel related expenses so we would use a small procurement request in advance if needed for hotels and buses under $5,000. We strongly encourage the coaches to use their American Express Corporate card for as many expenses as possible and to use the advances for per diem and emergency money only.

We follow the same procedure when administering cash advances. The forms are approved by the business manager and are reconciled with the business office upon the coaches return.

FYI: the original question dealt with Team travel advances, but some have also discussed their practices re: individual travel advances. At Purdue, we used to do travel advances for individual travel, also, , but it was a real headache trying to get them reconciled. Our current practice, for INDIVIDUAL TRAVEL only, is that the staff member has to give us a personal, post-dated check in the amount of the advance. The check is post-dated for about 3 weeks after the expected return from the trip. That should give the traveler enough time to process a travel reimbursement request and use the reimbursement to cover the check when it comes due. When the check becomes due, we just deposit it. The traveler does NOT have to reconcile the advance. In effect, we're just giving them an interest-free, short-term loan.

AT UMKC, our procedures are very similar. You can only get cash advances for meals ($25 per day) and miscellaneous cash expense (tips,tolls). The purchasing card can be used for meals,charter buses and airline tickets. The Mastercard travel card has to be used for other travel expenses such as hotels,rental vehicles,etc...

- Carla Wilson, University of Missouri-Kansas City