Frequently Asked Questions

We recommend using Google Chrome when processing an Expense Report (ER) in Ariba eTravel as it has reported the least amount of issues. 

Alternative web browsers do work but we have come across some minor bugs in them. Mozilla Firefox we have come across the most issues with over the years. 

We also recommend making sure that your Google Chrome is up to date and is set to automatically stay up to date. The Ariba developers match the system with more current versions of web browsers so it's generally best to let your web browsers stay up to date. Here are some screenshots that walk through how to check on this for Google Chrome: 

There are several ROLES that must be assigned by your department prior to using eTravel.

ASTRA is used to designate the compliance and funding approvers for specific budgets/organization codes. A watcher role may also be added to view only specific budgets/organization codes.

The preparer and individuals on the approval flow receive email notifications indicating the ER status unless each change their own email notification preferences.

See Notification Preferences.

Traveler information that auto-populates for future expense reports. Learn more.

Select Yes next to Personal Time Taken in the Summary screen and provide dates, times, and location of personal travel. Airfare costs for destination other than the UW business location is not reimbursable and must be deducted from the total airfare cost. Learn more about responsibilities during personal time.

Click on the County Info link to identify if the city is in a high cost county for domestic locations. Learn more.  Select Other when the location is not listed for Foreign and Non-Contiguous areas. Learn more.

Receipts must be attached to ER for all expenses $75 or over and all receipts regardless of costs for airfare, lodging,rail, car rental, laundry, and meals paid on the behalf for others are required.

* Ensure you check with your department/medical center administrators on which receipts they require.

ERs will automatically withdraw after 30 calendar days if there are no actions taken. The ER will remain in the My Documents box indefinitely until an action is taken.

No, eTravel will automatically assigned each ER an id number instead.

Split budgets can be entered at an individual item level or as a mass edit after all items have been entered. Select Edit then Split Accounting per individual item or select Mass Edit then Split Accounting for all items. Learn more.

Yes, enter these codes in the budget screen.

CTA, Procard and Other Expense Report (ER) are Paid By options  for some travel expense items and can be selected when expenses have been charged to these accounts. These expenses will be included in total trip cost, but will be excluded from reimbursed amount. Note:  Selecting these paid by options are not required.  A comment may also be entered regarding items paid by these options.  

Signatures are no longer required for travelers on UW payroll to approve their travel reimbursement. Employees logs into etravel and their approval is authenticated with their UW NetId.

The ER print version can be emailed, faxed, scanned, or mailed to the traveler. The traveler must sign the ER print version, return to the department via email, fax, scan or mail.  The preparer approves the ER once the signature is received and may electronically attach the signature to the ER in eTravel.

Select Claimant as the appropriate Paid By method for each item and enter the other travelers' names in the ER comment section. Please also include purpose of trip home address (city and state), and duty station (city and state) for other traveler in the ER comment section. Meals paid for others is separate  from this and are reimbursed at actual costs as evidenced by receipts and cannot exceed the allowable meal per diem rate per person according to the location of travel.

If the ER is submitted and completely approved prior to 6:00pm, the check is issued the following day.

Select Wire from the Check Delivery Information options. Include applicable information listed on ER print version and attach to the ER in ARIBA with applicable receipts.

To review transactions in eTravel a UWNetid and password are required.  We have taken additional security measures to protect what may be considered sensitive information by limiting access to documentation: Attachments (receipts) and comments in the system will only be visible to those authorized on the ER approval flow:  preparer, approver, traveler, or watcher.

Only use eTravel if you are reimbursing the traveler. Please be sure to provide proof of payment and comercial lodging facility. If reimbursing property managment company contact Real Estate Office.

You may authorize the user to have enhanced accessibility. This role provides two links on the top left corner that help navigation and a scroll on lists rather than pages.

Log onto Astra

Choose Ariba Admin

Select enhanced accessibility under role

Click ok proceed to cart

The status of your expense report is right at your fingertips

• Go into eTravel and search for this ER

• Once you have it up click on the approval flow tab

• Check if all nodes have a green check mark, if one does not, that is where it is stuck

• Check the status of the ER in the right hand corner:
  • Submitted – Awaiting approval(check approval flow)
  • Processed – paid ( check history to see the date)
  • Denied – An approver has denied the ER ( check the comments for details, fix and hit resubmit or submit)

• If all are green, go to the history tab, see when the last approval was done, If done by 6pm , the check is issued the next business day and you can see it on MYFD

• If direct deposit yes was chosen, it is in your bank accound two business days after the final approval.

See Ariba Scanning Policy set forth by UW Records Management for more information 

See Ariba Scanning Policy set forth by UW Records Management for more information 

Per Diem no longer in eTravel/Ariba? 

• Using the ‘meal per diem’ OR 'lodging per diem' line item, select the current per diem rate for that business location.
• In the line item, you will use the ‘override’ function to reduce the reimbursement down to the allowable per diem based on the previous dates.
• Documentation of the old per diem must be attached to the expense report as a PDF:
  • Domestic (contiguous states) can be found at: https://www.gsa.gov/travel/plan-book/per-diem-rates
  • Foreign (including non-contiguous states) can be found at: https://www.defensetravel.dod.mil/site/perdiemCalc.cfm
• Add a comment indicating this procedure was followed due to the per diems no longer being listed in the Ariba system.
• For any questions please email the Travel Office: travel@uw.edu

• Add one day before the actual check in date.  For example, travel dates were 9/28/10 - 10/2/10.  New season rates were in effect on 10/1/2010.
  
  • enter check in date of 9/27 and check out date of 9/30 as one lodging item during the first season
  • enter check in date of 10/1 and check out date of 10/2 as one lodging item during the second season
  • enter a comment regarding two seasonal rates

Request and reconciliation of a per diem advance is completed online in eTravel. Learn more.

Living Allowance: A department may issue a Living Allowance to defray costs that a non-UW Foreign National may incur while in Seattle for UW Business

Restrictions:  

•limited to the GSA meal per diem rate for actual dates of stay in Seattle

•payment will not be released until all required foreign national documentation is attached to the expense report

•may not be used to defray expenses for others

Time Limitations:

•allowance may not exceed 30 days at a time

•WT/B2 visa types limited to 9 days reimbursement every 6 months

Learn more.

It depends.  The Fly America Act mandates the use of U.S. certificated air carriers for federally funded international travel.  Learn more.

• Effective January 1st, 2018
• To ensure expenses are properly accounted for, documentation must comply with the IRS Accountable Plan
• If itemized receipts are obtainable and compliant with IRS Accountable Plan, reimburse expenses as usual on their appropriate line items
• If receipts are not itemized and not compliant with the IRS Accountable Plan, use the 'Package Deal' line item in Ariba and follow the built in tax instruction
• For UW employees, email pr-tax@uw.edu with employee name, employee ID #, payment description and package deal amount. Please attach proof to the expense report. 
  • The traveler will be taxed through payroll as income based the amount of the non-compliant package deal total:
    • 2018 withholding: 
      • Federal Income Tax = 22%
      • Social Security Tax = 6.2%
      • Medicare Tax = 1.45%
• For non-UW Individuals, due to tax reporting requirements, non-UW employees are to be paid honoraria through the P2I (payment to individual) process

**All resources should be exhausted to acquire IRS Accountable Plan compliant receipts. The package deal line item should be used as a last resort when those resources have been exhausted.

Contact Accounts Payable (checks) at checks@uw.edu and provide the check # of the check you wish to cancel. The check # can be obtained by checking my FD.

To reissue the payment, a new ER will need to be processed after confirming the live check has been cancelled.

Please make a comment on the old ER stating the check number and confirmation that it has been cancelled. After confirming cancellation, on the new ER, please make a comment stating that it is replacing the previous ER.

To speed up the process, you can use the ‘copy’ function in Ariba. Note that all attachments will need to be reattached and all comments will need to be re-added. Here are the instructions:

1.            Locate the previous Expense Report by searching for it

2.            Select the Expense Report by marking the check-box to the left of it (do not actually open the report)

3.            Click on the 'copy' button, which will be right below

4.            Click the travel tab at the top of Ariba, the copy report will be in the 'My Documents' section of your dashboard

5.            Please attach all of the required receipts/documents, as they won’t be automatically copied

6.            Please re-create line item comments and overall comments, as they won’t be duplicated either

Here is a screenshot example:

*Signature from previous report may be attached as long as the expense line items/amount has not been changed. 

• select UW box
• have the check sent to yourself
• reroute the check through the us postal service

Tips for transportation, such as taxis and shuttles are ok to reimburse, any other tips are considered an incidental expense which is included in the amount of meal per diem that you get reimbursed.

Please prorate the car rental. Take the toal amount and divide by the number of days. Multiply the daily rate by the total number of business days ( please also do this if they rented at a weekly rate but business days were less).

►Mozilla Firefox:

Go to : Tools->Options->Advanced Panel->Network->Cashed Web Content->Clear Now
After clearing cache log out of all browsers and restart the computer.

►Internet Explore (IE9):

1. Close all browser sessions (if needed restart computer)
2. Open a new Internet explorer browser, and go to delete browsing history
   Go to : Tools->Internet Options->Browsing History->Delete or ctr+shift+del
3. Make sure “Preserve Favorites website date” is unchecked and “Temporary Internet Files” and “Cookies” are checked
4. Click Delete, it may take some time to complete
5. Close browser
6. Open a new browser and login into Ariba
   https://ar.admin.washington.edu/AribaBuyer/uw/login.asp
   Note: As a reminder is important to never use the back arrow on the browser, and use the “Logout” button on the screen rather than just closing the browser.

►Other Internet Browsers:

For more information on clearing your internet cache using other browsers, see the WikiHow article: How to Clear your Browser's Cache

Travel charges to grants and contracts should  comply with university travel policies unless the sponsor/award imposes more restrictive travel provisions. Or an exception is approved by the sponsor.

Yes, unless the sponsor/award imposes a more restrictive travel provision. 

Yes, both AirBnB and VRBO are considered comercial lodging facilities. Please be sure to include all fees in the daily rate of the lodging per diem line item. 

Only if you share a joint account with the person who paid, for example a husband and wife who share the same bank account. If this is the case, add a comment to the expense report (ER) indicating this. In all other instances, reimbursement must go to the traveler who actually paid for the expense. See claimant.

We understand this. From talking to other departments that travel a lot globally, they have said they just carry a receipt book that can be handwritten and have the individual providing the service sign. For taxis and things like this we know this is probably the most we will get unless they pay with a credit card.  We need the amount listed and which currency it was paid in, the service they paid for and the date. 

This is not a proper audit trail.  It is not reimbursable, Either split payment to the vendor directly and obtain receipts showing both payments made or have one person pay for the entire expense (see claimant).