Travel Reimbursement Instructions

• Get written approval from Dr. Chory first. Email/slack is fine. Keep it or take a screenshot, because it helps to attach to the reimbursement & will speed up processing
• Book coach or economy only. An upgrade is a personal expense and needs its own separate receipt.
• Ask for itemized receipts every time. A card slip showing only a total is not enough and will be sent back, and then you will have to personally call the vendor for an itemized receipt to get refunded.
• Keep meals to yourself where you can. Group meals read as social expenses to an auditor and are harder to process.
• Never put alcohol on a receipt you intend to claim. Alcohol is not reimbursable, and one drink on the bill makes the entire receipt unreimbursable, food included. Always ask for a separate check.

You cannot submit until the trip is over. Sometimes that includes conference registration, so save everything and submit it together when you finish the trip.

Apply for these before you travel. They are separate from reimbursement, and they have their own deadlines.

BME Department Conference Travel Award

• Who: students presenting a poster or a talk.
• Amount: one award of $1,000 before the preliminary exam, or up to two awards of $500 after it.
• Apply: BME Travel Award Application.
• Approval: Dr. Chory must email approval directly to the BME department contact. The award letter is issued only after both the application and that email are in.

Duke Graduate School Conference Travel Award

• Who: PhD students who have passed all parts of the preliminary exam and are presenting a paper or poster.
• Amount: up to $525 domestic, $700 international.
• Frequency: one per fiscal year, July 1 to June 30.
• Deadline: all materials must be in at least 30 days before the conference starts, and you must confirm your application reached the Graduate School. If the travel advance and award letter have not arrived 30 days out, follow up.
• Letter of intent: one short paragraph giving the conference name, location and dates, what you are presenting, and why you are going.
• More information: Graduate School conference support.

After the conference, Graduate School award only

• Submit all receipts and a completed Travel Expense Form to the DGSA.
• The DGSA must get post-trip documentation to the Graduate School within 20 days of the end of travel.
• Any unspent award money is repaid through your bursar account, and the debit clears once the report is processed.

The full policy is in the lab handbook, under Conferences and Professional Travel Guidelines. The short version:

• Airfare: coach or economy only. The receipt must show the class of fare and your name. Federal grants require a U.S. flag carrier.
• Lodging: the final hotel folio showing taxes, not the booking confirmation. Share rooms when several of us are at the same meeting.
• Meals: itemized, preferably for yourself only. There is no per diem, so the limit is your judgment, and the money comes out of the lab budget.
• Ground transport: taxi, Uber, Lyft and shuttles between home or work and the airport, the airport and the hotel, and the hotel and the venue. Receipts must show the payment method and the start and end locations.
• Mileage: check the current Duke rate and attach a map showing the distance. Gas receipts are not reimbursable.
• Never: alcohol, spouse or companion travel, anything outside the official conference dates, or travel insurance unless it was cleared first.

If you extended the trip for personal reasons, you must include dated proof of what the airfare would have cost for the conference dates alone. Without it the airfare is not reimbursed at all.

• Reimbursement: First reach out to sylvia.harris@duke.edu if you have a question. Alice Kessing often handles reimbursements specifically for BMES.
• Insurance or a rental car: ask Alice Kessing
• Something wrong in the portal: tell Dr. Chory.

Submit to the Chory Lab Portal

Everything goes through the Chory Lab Reimbursement Portal. You no longer create folders, rename receipts, or fill in the Travel Receipt Log by hand.

1. Open the portal and choose "I went on a trip"

1. Pick your name from the list. Your Duke Unique ID and fund code are filled in for you. If you are not on the list, choose "I am not on this list" and type them.

1. Enter the trip details

1. The conference and year
2. your departure and return dates
3. where you went
4. If you are using a travel award, name it here.

1. Add each receipt

1. Upload a photo or a PDF. The date, vendor, amount and category are read off the receipt and filled in for you automatically

Double check what it filled in before you submit. A misread number becomes a wrong claim, and you are the one signing for it.

The portal will also flag anything likely to be rejected, such as alcohol on the receipt or a total with no itemized lines. Add as many receipts as the trip needed. You can come back later and add more; they all join the same trip.

1. Click "I am done with this trip"
2. Download the bundle from the page. You need it for your last step.

The portal then does all of the following on its own:

• files every receipt into your conference folder in the lab Drive
• names each one so the claim can be read straight off the file list, as date, your name, vendor, amount and type
• fills in your Travel Receipt Log and exports it as a spreadsheet and a PDF
• bundles the receipts and the log into a single download
• emails that packet to whoever processes your reimbursement, copying you and the lab

Your last step

The portal does not submit to Duke for you. What you do next depends on your role.

• PhD students

• Your packet has already been emailed to Helen Richard, with you copied.
• Submit the same information in the Student Reimbursement Form, attaching the bundle the portal produced.
• Attach award letters if you are using a travel award.
• Allow up to 3 weeks for processing.

• Undergraduate and MS students

• Your packet has been emailed to the lab, with you copied.
• Submit the same information in the Student Reimbursement Form, attaching the bundle the portal produced.
• Attach award letters if you are using a travel award.
• Allow up to 3 weeks for processing.

• Employees, research assistants and postdocs

• Email sylvia.harris@duke.edu who can help with the following steps. Alternatively you can create the report yourself in Concur using your Duke@Work credentials, to expedite the process. To do so:

• Start a Travel Expense Report in Concur using your Duke@Work credentials. Report type Travel Report, traveler type Student Employee if that applies to you, trip purpose Conference. Leave the cost center alone.
• Enter each expense and attach the matching receipt from your bundle. Attach award letters to the report header.
• If you are charging a grant fund code, copy Dr. Chory so the approval is on record.
• Submit only once you receive an email confirmation that the report is ready to submit.

For Concur help, contact Employee Travel and Reimbursement at employeetravel@duke.edu, or see the quick reference guides.