Accounts Payable & Travel Accounting Update & Important Reminders for January

Sent to the AFS-Update mailing list on Jan. 24, 2024

IRS Issues Mileage Rates for 2024

The Internal Revenue Service announced an increase of the standard mileage rate to 67 cents per mile for business travel, an increase of 1.5 cents compared to last year. The new rate is effective for expenses incurred on or after Jan. 1, 2024.

The reimbursement rate for driving an automobile in connection with a move or relocation will remain the same at 22 cents a mile. Visit the Mileage Rates page on our website for more information.

Don’t Forget! To avoid reimbursement delays, be sure to include the proof of mileage – a copy of the Google Map or MapQuest instructions showing the mileage.

Reminder: Reimbursing Patient or Research Subject Meals

When preparing an Entertainment Reimbursement eDoc for patient or research subject meals, you must include two additional pieces of required documentation. The following documents must be included in the scanned documents tab:

Certification of Payment to Anonymous Persons
Valid IRB letter

See the Accounting Office website for more information about working with the ENT document.

Aramark Vendor Payments – Pay the Total Invoice Amount

When placing an order with the vendor Aramark that involves booking more than one event, be sure to request a separate invoice for each event. This is necessary for the following reasons:

A department must pay the TOTAL dollar amount stated on the Aramark invoice in the Entertainment Reimbursement eDoc.
Partial invoice payments are not allowed.
This is to avoid duplicate payments requiring a refund process and ACH reversals.

To ensure the vendor payment is properly applied to your department, include the following information in the TEM/DV Check Stub Text field:

Invoice number
Invoice date
TOTAL AMOUNT DUE – please note, initiators may use multiple account numbers in the Accounting Lines tab.

Find Links to UC Policies on ZotPortal

Not sure what can be reimbursed or what documentation is required? University of California policy is the primary source for this type of information. You can access these policies from ZotPortal. To find them, do the following:

Go to the ZotPortal: https://portal.uci.edu/
Click on the Finances/KFS tab.
Look for the Travel & Event Management portlet.
Expand the Policies section by clicking the [+] button.

Links to the following policies can found in the portlet:

TEM – All Approvals Must be in the Route Log

The appropriate approvers – including additional approvers and exceptional approvers for travel and entertainment reimbursements – must be in the Route Log of a KFS document. Email approval or signed inter-office forms are not acceptable. This is required for post audit and internal audits. If the appropriate approvers are not in the Route Log of your travel and entertainment reimbursement document in KFS, the document may be returned to the initiator.

Accounts Payable Remote Business Hours

Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.