Travel funded by sponsored awards often presents unique spending challenges: participants submit eligible reimbursement requests long after the activity period has ended and award funds have been fully expended, exempt participant-travel costs are improperly coded in the Berkeley Financial System (BFS) and consequently included in the indirect cost rate calculation applied to other spending on the award, and payments prepared in the campus Travel system are rejected as disallowed costs by an auditor at award closeout due to incomplete or inaccurate information about the trip in the official record.
The pre-award administrator can advise Principal Investigators about options for describing and estimating travel-related costs in proposal budgets, proactively addressing and mitigating spending challenges well before award activity commences.
UC Travel Policy – since all travel supported by University funds is subject to UC travel policy, regardless of the traveler’s affiliation or home institution, consult UC Berkeley’s travel site to ensure you know the policy before expectations are set: https://travel.berkeley.edu/understand-policy/travel-policy-nutshell