Hotel Expense
Adding a Hotel Expense
The Hotel expense will likely be one of the more time-consuming expenses you need to enter in the Chrome River expense report. The main reason for this is that you need to itemize EVERY expense that shows up on the hotel receipt, sometimes referred to as a FOLIO. The two main sub-expenses that need to be itemized will typically be the room rate for each night as well as the associated taxes.
After clicking Create New to add an expense to your reimbursement request, select the Hotel expense tile. Then follow the instructions shown below.
Step 1: Adding Hotel Expense Details
Date: The date the hotel was paid for (usually the date of check-out).
Spent: Enter the cost of the expense listed on the receipt. This can be changed to different currencies if required.
Maximum Room Rate: You will notice that a number cannot be entered into the grayed-out Maximum Room Rate field because it will be automatically calculated, use the following instructions:
Calculating Maximum Room Rate Instructions
Click Calculate and the Calculate Allowable Total screen will pop up.
Start Date: Start date of the stay, which should be the same as the check-in date.
End Date: End date of the stay, which should be the same as the check-out date.
Location: Enter the location of the accommodations.
Rooms: Enter the total number of rooms under the reservation/receipt (this is typically 1).
Once you have filled in all of the fields, the bottom section will automatically calculate the respective totals. The important field to pay attention to is the Maximum Room Rate which is a soft cap on the amount that can be spent. Please note that the room rate does not include taxes so the total for a night will be higher. If any given night is over the Maximum Room Rate, then you may need to provide a small reasoning for the overage.
Click Save to return to the Hotel Expense Details screen.
Location: Enter the location of the accommodations.
This is a Conference Hotel: Check this box if this is a conference hotel. A conference hotel is any hotel directly affiliated with the event. Conference organizers will typically make deals with local hotels, especially those close to or hosting the event, by reserving a set number of rooms at a discount rate. The best way to find out if a hotel is a conference hotel is to check the conference website. Most conference homepages will have a tab for ‘Travel’ or ‘Venue’ options which will list hotels affiliated with the event. Payables will almost always require proof that the conference hotel is affiliated with the event. You can either provide an event program that features the hotel information or take a screenshot of the conference webpage listing the affiliated hotel options. NOTE: If it is a conference hotel, the nightly room rate can exceed the ‘Maximum Room Rate’ without explaining the overage. Keep in mind that Payables will still usually want you to select the most economical options in terms of the room selection reserved by conference organizers for the event. Example: If the conference reserved a set of standard queen-sized bedrooms and a penthouse suite, Payables may question why the penthouse suite was necessary!
Business Purpose: This will automatically populate what you entered at the header level.
Description: Optional field to add details or clarifications about the expense.
Check-In/Check-Out Dates: Enter the dates as listed on the hotel receipt/FOLIO.
Traveler Name: Enter the individual associated with this arrangement. If you are completing a reimbursement for yourself, or on behalf of someone else as a delegate, then you/they should already have access to Chrome River and should have no problem finding your/their name. Traveler Names are only pulled from a list of those students/employees who have access to Chrome River. If for some reason the reimbursee’s name doesn’t appear, you may type in the option ‘Traveler Not Found’ and select it as the traveler. This selection covers any individual who is not in the Chrome River system.
Search for and enter your CFOP(s). If you do not have a CFOP to use, you will need to request one from your supervisor or departmental head.
Please note that the Allocation field will automatically fill in with the CFOP provided in the first expense completed. It will do this for all following expenses entered but can be changed manually.
Click Add Attachments to add the receipt and/or backup documentation for this expense.
Please note that the file must be either an image format or a PDF, Chrome River will not accept Word documents. You can either click the Add Attachments button and browse to the location where you have the receipt saved or you can simply drag and drop the receipt into the Attachments section of the report.
From your hotel receipt/FOLIO, the 'Accommodation' charge will be the room rate while the ‘Room Tax’ and ‘Occupancy Tax’ will be the taxes. Each charge line on a hotel receipt/FOLIO will result in its own itemized expense. For example, if you have a 2-night stay, your hotel receipt/folio will likely show 2 'Accommodation' lines, 2 'Room Tax' lines, and 2 'Occupancy Tax' lines. That is a total of 6 charge lines so you'll need to do 6 itemization's on the expense report. You can not combine all of the similar charges to reduce the itemization's submitted.
Click the Itemize button at the top right of the Hotel Expense Details screen and a new set of sub-expense tiles will appear.
Select the Hotel - Room Rate tile and enter the following details:
Date: Date of the room expense.
Spent: Amount spent on the expense. If the amount spent exceeds the Daily Allowable limit then two new fields will automatically populate once you put in the amount spent. Please select the most appropriate reason why the hotel room nightly rate was greater than the Daily Allowable amount from the 3 drop-down options. In many cases, hotels in a conference area may have the price inflated due to the event, so in this case, the ‘No Alternative’ option would be the best option. Please note that if the overage amount becomes excessive, especially if it’s greater than $100, you may want to add a small note in the Description that the hotel prices were hyper-inflated due to the event.
Daily allowable: This will automatically be filled in with the Maximum Room Rate that was calculated in Step 1.
Business Purpose: This will automatically populate what you entered at the header level.
Description: Optional field to add details or clarifications about the expense.
Traveler Name: This will automatically populate what you entered at the header level.
Click Save to return to the Hotel Expense Details screen to add additional Room Rates or Add Taxes until all of the charge lines from the hotel receipt/FOLIO have been added to the expense.
Select the Hotel - Taxes / Fees tile and enter the following details:
Date: Date of the room expense.
Spent: Amount spent on the expense.
Business Purpose: This will automatically populate what you entered at the header level.
Description: Optional field to add details or clarifications about the expense.
Traveler Name: This will automatically populate what you entered at the header level.
Click Save to return to the Hotel Expense Details screen to add additional Room Rates or Add Taxes until all of the charge lines from the hotel receipt/FOLIO have been added to the expense.
Once you have itemized all the expenses from the hotel receipt/FOLIO, you should see a green check mark next to the hotel expense indicating that the total amount spent has been accounted for and that there are no more warnings that will prevent us from submitting the report.
Click Save in the top right-hand corner.
If you have additional expenses to add to this travel reimbursement report, please return to Step 3: Add a New Expense.
If you have entered all of your expenses related to this travel reimbursement report, please go to Step 4: Submitting the Report.