Reimburse Taxis & Shuttles

Per IU’s Travel policy FIN-TVL-01, “Reimbursement is allowed for the cost of transportation between the airport and the site(s) of official university business, including the lodging site if different from other official business locations.”

Taxi, shuttle, and rideshare (e.g., Uber, Lyft) trips must be directly tied to university business to qualify for reimbursement. Receipt details and comments logged on the report must clearly demonstrate that the trip was business-related.

Which Trips Qualify for Reimbursement:

Reimbursable: Rides to business meals, travel between hotel and meeting site, or airport to conference location.
Reimbursable with additional justification: Rides to off-site dining after normal business hours. Add comments explaining the business at hand to justify after-hours expenses.
Not reimbursable: Rides for personal, leisure, or entertainment purposes, even if taken during a business trip.

This page provides instructions for adding a Taxi/Shuttle reimbursement to an expense report or editing an imported Taxi/Shuttle expense line.

An approved Trip Authorization is required to submit the reimbursement.
IU Travel policy requires that taxi & shuttle reimbursements that are $75.01 or more require a receipt that meets the required receipt details. Your department or grant may always require a receipt, regardless of the amount.
Identify the account number(s) funding the expenses. If you’re unsure, ask your Fiscal Officer or local business office.
If you are processing a reimbursement on behalf of someone else:
- You must have Delegate or Super Delegate access to submit the report. Visit the Emburse Enterprise Roles and Access page to learn more.
- Switch to the traveler’s profile in Emburse. Watch the Switching Profiles in Emburse Enterprise video to learn how.

Step 1: On the traveler’s Emburse Enterprise dashboard, initiate an expense report by clicking the +Create button on the Expenses ribbon.

A new Expense Report opens.

Step 2: Determine whether you’re importing a Trip Authorization (TA) or manually filling out the report header.

Import TA if the information on the TA’s header is accurate and the expenses only need minor updates.
Manually complete the header and expenses if your TA lists the wrong Travel Type or Report Type. This allows you to enter the correct information on the report.

Review Travel SOP-TVL-12 TA Importing Options to learn about the different ways to attach a TA and when each technique might be useful.

Step 1: Click the Import Trip Authorization button.

Step 2: Click the Select a TA report drop-down menu.

Step 3: Select the Trip Authorization report relevant to this trip.

The TA dropdown menu is open displaying three approved TA’s.

Step 4: A summary of expenses is displayed. Review the information and click Import in the bottom right corner.

Information you entered at the header level, such as report name, trip type, and dates are automatically imported and populated on the summary page of the report.

Step 5: Define the Business Purpose of the trip. Do not use acronyms in this field. The Business Purpose should clearly explain to an auditor or independent approver why the trip was a legitimate use of IU funds. In this example, we entered “Reimbursements for Association for Talent Development conference” in the Business Purpose field.

Step 6: Click Save.

Step 7: Imported TA lines appear in the left-hand window. Open the Taxi/Shuttle expense by clicking on it. The expense opens to capture details on the right.

Step 8: Click Edit and the fields become editable. Proceed to Step 3: Click the Save button.

Step 1: Fill out the Report name: this should include the traveler’s name or username, destination, and dates. This helps to identify the trip at a glance. E.g., “Juliet Roberts New Orleans Oct 13-16.”

Step 2: Select the Report Type from the dropdown. Report type describes what kind of traveler is on the trip. The table below defines each report type option. Juliet Roberts, the traveler in this example, is an IU employee so we selected the “Employee Travel” Report Type.

Report type	Description
Employee Travel	Travel by an IU employee.
Nonemployee/Nonstudent Travel	Travel by a non-IU guest (e.g., guest speaker, job candidate).
Recruiting Travel	Travel by an IU employee for the purpose of recruiting.
Student Travel	Travel by an individual IU student.
Student Group Travel	Travel by a group of at least three IU students and a group leader with whom all travel expenses will be associated.

Step 3: Select the Travel type from the dropdown. Travel type describes the destination. Choose In State if the destination is in Indiana. If not, choose Domestic, or International as appropriate. The destination of this example trip was New Orleans, Louisiana so we selected “Domestic.”

Step 4: Enter the Trip Start Date and Trip End Date. Expenses must have been purchased between these dates. In this example, we’ve entered “October 13 through 16.”

Step 5: Define the Business Purpose of the trip. Do not use acronyms in this field. The Business Purpose should clearly explain to an auditor or independent approver why the trip was a legitimate use of IU funds. The Business Purpose for this example is “Reimbursements for Assoc. for Talent Development training.”

Step 6: Enter the City State Zip in the field. E.g., “New Orleans, LA 70121.”

Step 7: Click Save.

After you’ve created a report, add the expense manually.

Step 8: Click on the encircled white plus sign and a mosaic of expense tiles appears to the right.

Step 9: In the expense mosaic, click on the Ground Transportation tile.

Step 10: Select Taxi/Shuttle.

A new, blank Taxi/Shuttle expense will appear. Proceed to Step 3: Click the Save button.

Step 3: Click the Save button to identify the required fields. The required fields will be indicated by red instructional text beneath each one. Fill in the required fields.

Step 4: In the Date field, enter the expense date listed on the receipt, e.g., “10/15/2025.”

Step 5: In the Spent field, enter the amount to be reimbursed, e.g., “$13.65”

Step 6: Describe the business connection of the ride in the Description field. In this example, we entered, “Ride to networking event.”

Step 7: Select the taxi, rideshare, or shuttle service used from the Vendor dropdown, e.g. Uber/Lyft.

Step 8: Enter the KFS account number in the Allocation – Select department account field to search for it. Sub-accounts are displayed first. Select the account from the list.

Step 9: Your department may also require the Project Code or Organization Reference ID fields. Ask your Fiscal Officer or local business office if you’re unsure what information to enter.

Step 10: When all required fields are filled, click Save.

Step 1: Some units require receipts for all expenses regardless of amount. To add a receipt or other attachment, select the Add Attachments button. There are two ways to add a receipt to the expense:

Select From Receipt Gallery if you used the Emburse app on your mobile device to take a picture of the receipt that was added to your Emburse Receipt Gallery.
Use the Upload Attachments option to search for the receipt on your computer or other device.

Once the receipt is attached (if necessary) and all required fields are filled out, continue completing expenses or submit the report.

Step 10: Look for green checkmarks next to all the expenses on your report. Continue updating the expense details or deleting un-used expenses until every line ends with a checkmark.

Step 11: Click Submit.

Step 12: If you did not start by importing a TA, the system will prompt you to attach one now. Click the Trip Authorization button. The report cannot be submitted without an approved TA.

Step 13: Certify all your expenses are legitimate and click Submit a second time.

Expenses are reviewed by the Travel Approver(s) for the allocation(s) you listed on your expenses, as well as Travel Management Services.

Learn how to track your report to identify approvers or verify whether a payment was sent.

Financial Training & Communications

Reimburse Taxis & Shuttles

Additional links and resources

Reimburse Taxis & Shuttles

Before you start

Import TA

Manually complete header and expense

If the expense is greater than $75, attach a receipt

Additional links and resources