What’s the best way to pay for my conference registration?
There are many benefits when you pay with the P-Card, including:
- Prompt payment: Secure your conference registration before prices go up.
- Reduces your out-of-pocket expenses: Using a P-Card reduces your financial burden, freeing those funds up for personal expenses. Additionally, reimbursements have to wait until end of trip. Depending on when your trip occurs, this may cause unnecessary interest fees that could have been avoided by using a P-Card.
How do I request reimbursement if I paid my registration fees with personal funds?
Registration fees can be reimbursed. You can claim reimbursement in Chrome River one of two ways:
- Before the trip using an Out-of-Pocket report type with department approval, or
- After the trip by including it on your regular Travel-type expense report.
Check with your department to see what your Fiscal Officer’s reporting preference is.
What if lodging is included with the conference registration?
Sometimes lodging and registration expenses are bundled together . The P-Card may be declined with these types of transactions. Travel expenses are restricted on the P-Card and in these circumstances, we recommend that you contact Card Services via the Purchasing support form so the restriction to be temporarily lifted and the conference registration with lodging can be purchased.
What about membership fees?
Organizations often offer a discounted conference rate for their members, so it’s common to see membership fees and conference registration paid together. This is allowable, but the expenses must be categorized with different object codes to ensure correct reporting.
Object code 5050 should be used for membership fees while object code 4013 should be used for conference registration. Check out the Itemize a Purchase video to learn how to breakdown this expense on a P-Card Reconciliation report.
If the purchase was made out of pocket, submit an Out of Pocket expense report with two expense lines. One for the portion of the reimbursement related to membership fees using object code 5050, and another for the portion related to conference registration using object code 4013.
There are extra products and events included with my registration payment. What is allowable in a travel or out of pocket expense report?
Tangible products and/or add-on events like books, tickets to a show, hot air balloon rides, tours, etc. not directly related to the conference purpose should not be reported in a reimbursement expense report. Education courses and banquets/ceremonies can be reported in a travel report. If a meal is purchased as a separate line item, make sure to deduct it from your per diem to avoid overpayments.