A Travel Authorization is a form that an employee submits to acquire the permissions needed to receive reimbursement for travel and provide the University with some expense estimates. Travel Authorizations will be required for all out-of-state (which includes international) travel, and some departments may require TA's for in-state travel. UGA policy considers travel out-of-state if the travel is more than 50 miles outside of Georgia.
For Domestic trips, complete the Domestic Pay by Employee and Domestic Direct Bill UGA lines.
For International trips, complete the International Pay by Employee and International Direct Bill UGA lines.
Failure to complete the details sections accurately will result in your travel authorization being denied. You will then need to create a new travel authorization and begin the approval process again.
In this article, you will learn the steps to create a travel authorization for international travel.
Note: Data has been masked to protect personal or financial information.
First, log into OneUSG Connect.
On the Employee Self Service page, click the Travel Authorizations tile.
The Travel Authorizations Search page is displayed. This page allows you to view and add travel authorizations.
If you are filling out a Travel Authorization as a delegate for another employee, click the Actions button by your name to change your perspective to that of the employee.
Click the Add Travel Authorization button to create a new travel authorization.
The Travel Authorization page is displayed.
In the Description field, enter a brief description explaining the purpose of the trip.
Example shown here: Enter "Conference".
In the Business Purpose field, click the drop-down list to choose the travel purpose.
Note: The Business Purpose field, and other header defaults, can be auto-filled by the traveler's profile defaults.
For international travel, click the Out-of-State Travel list item.
The Comments field can be utilized for any additional comments or justification needed for the trip.
In the Billing Type field, click the drop-down list to choose the billing type.
Note: The Billing Type should always be set to Default Value. This is another profile default that can be saved on the traveler's profile defaults if desired.
An Accounting Tag is a ten character "short cut" for populating a full chartstring distribution.
The Accounting Tag will populate the Accounting Details if you have set up an Accounting Tag for a specific account.
Enter appropriate information into the Accounting Tag field, if needed.
Example shown here: Enter "sampletag".
Select the appropriate Accounting Tag from the search results.
To update the ChartField details, click the Accounting Default button.
The Accounting Tag you selected in the previous page fills in the default information for the ChartFields.
However, you will still need to add the Budget Reference (Bud Ref) field.
Bud Ref is the fiscal year that the expense should be charged to.
Enter appropriate information into the Bud Ref field.
Example shown here: Enter "2019".
Be sure to review the accounting details before closing the window. Use the scrollbar at the bottom of the window to review the entire chartstring.
Note: If the department code lists "74999999", you MUST change that to reflect the appropriate unit, college, or school.
Failure to change this field will result in your document flowing to the wrong approval workflow.
The Notes feature allows the initiator to add additional information to explain the nature of the travel.
Note: You will not be able to create a note until the Travel Authorization has been saved.
If you attempt to click the Notes button before saving the TA, a warning message will appear.
The Travel From and Travel To fields should be completed.
The Travel From field can be utilized to search for the location that the traveler is leaving from (i.e. Georgia, Athens-Clarke) or the From location can be set as Headquarters as a default on the traveler's profile.
Enter appropriate information into the Travel From field.
Example shown here: Enter "HEAD ".
Select appropriate location from the drop-down menu.
Example shown here: Select HEADQ for Headquarters .
The Travel To field can be utilized to search for the trip destination.
If the traveler makes trips to the same destination repeatedly, the Travel To location can be set as a default on the traveler's profile.
Enter appropriate information into the Travel To field.
Example shown here: Enter "Hun".
Example shown here: Click the HUNGARY, Budapest option.
The travel dates should be selected using the calendars in the Date From and Date To fields.
In the Details section of the Travel Authorization, employees should provide estimates for what they anticipate to spend on the trip.
For INTERNATIONAL trips, use rows three and four to provide the estimates even if some of the expenses will be incurred within the United States.
The Populate from Travel Authorizations button will create a new blank expense line with chartstring information from a prior TA.
Note: This is optional and does not populate any information from the prior TA such as description, business purposes, travel locations, dates, etc.
In the Description field next to International Pay by Employee, input the types of expenses that you anticipate to pay from your personal funds and for which you will seek reimbursement.
This could include expenses such as lodging, car rental, meal per diems, conference registration, etc.
Enter appropriate information into the Amount field.
Example shown here: Enter "1200" to indicate $1200 of expected expenses.
For any charges being direct billed to UGA by a travel agency, list the types of charges in the Description field next to International Direct Bill UGA .
This row will also require a Merchant to be selected. Utilize the drop down-menu to select the UGA Authorized Travel Agency that the traveler is using to make airfare arrangements.
Select the appropriate travel agency from the list.
Example shown here: Click the Athena Travel list item.
Example shown here: Enter "1300" to indicate $1300 in direct bill charges.
The chartstring for each line is copied from the TA "header" which you filled out earlier with the Accounting Tag.
If you need to make any changes, the Accounting Detail button will allow you to review and change the chartstring for the selected TA line.
If you would like to save the travel authorization to review and submit at a later time, click the Save button.
After saving, you can access the saved authorization under the Pending link on the Travel Authorization Search page.
Upon saving, the travel authorization is given a Report ID through which it can be identified on queries and reports.
The Total value is also updated to reflect the sum of the reported amounts on the travel authorization.
Now that the TA has been saved, you can add notes.
Click the Notes button.
Enter appropriate information into the Notes field.
Note: Please make sure to include the current date in your note to help track the timeliness of comments.
When you are done entering information, click the Done button.
Your notes have been saved.
Note: The Edit function on the Travel Authorization Notes window allows you to delete a selected note and add a new one. You will have to click Save on the Travel Authorization page after clicking the Done button to save the new note.
Click the Done button to continue.
Before submitting your travel authorization, verify that you have completed the correct lines in the detail section. International trips should only use the last two lines.
Failure to do this correctly will result in your travel authorization being denied.
Click the Submit button to request approval for the travel authorization.
The travel authorization has been submitted for approval.