A. SUMMARY OF ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURE
The USNH Travel Pre-Approval/Advance Form is a document that can provide for pre-approval of a trip and a request for a travel advance in one form. In addition, if travel is pre-approved, reimbursement requests need not go through the same approval process if final costs are within the estimated amounts. This should allow reimbursement to the traveler to occur as rapidly as possible.
Although pre-approval of foreign travel is explicitly required for federal grant related travel, use of pre-approval can facilitate the reimbursement process in other funds as well as provide for budget planning needs. When requesting Pre-Approval for foreign travel on federal grants, please also include the proposed itinerary including traveler's name, destination, cost, airline carrier (federal awards require U. S. flag carriers or carriers with an exception to the Fly America Act described below), source of funds, purpose of the travel, and ticket classification (e.g., the coach, business, first-class, etc.).
B. DETAILED PROCEDURES
- The traveler will complete and check boxes on the USNH Travel Pre-Approval/Advance Form as they begin to plan their trip. Forms are provided on the Travel & Expense Administration section of the USNH Finance Hub as the traveler estimates transportation, meals, lodging and incidental expenses, there are locations provided to summarize the costs. When complete, the traveler will have a more complete picture of the total costs associated with the trip. Once the form is complete, it should first be approved by the appropriate supervisor or designee. If the form is being used for pre-approval of foreign travel related to a federal grant, STAR, or campus research office until transition to STAR has been completed, approval is also required. After all necessary approvals have been received, the traveler can make any necessary travel arrangements.
- Please make a note in the Description/Comment field next to the appropriate estimated amount of any item paid on your PCard. Also use the same space to put the confirmation number and phone number for any air or rail fare. This will allow the Travel and Expense Assistant to know if they need to pay for your registration fees and facilitate their efforts to get your transportation requests confirmed and paid in a timely manner.
- If requesting a travel advance, complete the Advance section and check the advance box on the form. providing sufficient notice to ensure the FOC has at least 4 business days needed to issue the travel advance via general Disbursement check/ACH. If no advance is necessary, you can skip this section.
- A blank Travel Pre-Approval/Advance Form is a plain form suitable for immediate completion, or copied and distributed. Please print new copies often, as this form will be updated on-line only. No forms will be printed and distributed by central offices.
A blank Travel Pre-Approval/Advance Form in Excel format requires Excel 5.0 or later. You may access this file and complete it within the Excel program - printing when complete, or at the point when it will require signatures. Again, please access this original since it will be updated on-line only.
Detailed instructions on the Travel Pre-Approval/Advance Form can be found in the Travel & Expense Administration section of the the USNH Finance Hub.
The official version of this information will only be maintained in an on-line web format. Any and all printed copies of this material are dated as of the print date. Please make certain to review the material on-line prior to placing reliance on a dated printed version.
