Setting Up Travel Reimbursements

Emily Garratley Updated by Emily Garratley

Travel Reimbursements

Overview

Definitions:
  • Travel Reimbursement - The record created to pay an employee for the amount of travel expense they incur during their working
  • Travel Reimbursement Rate - The rate of pay that is applied to a Travel Reimbursement Record
  • Commuting Travel - The mileage to travel to the first booking of a shift and home from the last booking of a shift

What's Covered in this Guide?

This guide will cover:

  • How to set up Travel Reimbursement Rates for different types of journeys
  • Exemptions and exclusions for commuting journeys
  • The setup process for creating and extracting Travel Reimbursement records
  • How to use Travel Reimbursement Rates for Payroll processing
  • Configuration of Travel Reimbursement Rates to meet the needs of organisations that have multiple policies applied in different locations/providers

Setting up new Travel Reimbursement Rates

When setting up a new Travel Reimbursement Rate there are 3 Unit Types:

  1. Miles: Creates Travel Reimbursements based on the mileage travelled
  1. Hours: Creates Travel Reimbursements based on the duration calculated to travel the distance
  1. Booking: Creates Travel Reimbursements at a flat rate per booking

Setting up a Commuting Travel Reimbursement Rate

Commuting Travel can only be created when the Unit Type of the Travel Reimbursement Rates is Miles.

When Commuting Travel Rate = Yes the new field "Commuting Travel Exclusions" will control whether any mileage is excluded from commuting journeys - this will default to no exclusions and can be changed to the following options:

  • Exclude Miles from First Journey
    • This will apply the exclusion to the first journey of a shift only
  • Exclude Miles from Last Journey
    • This will apply the exclusion to the last journey of the shift only
  • Exclude Miles from First and Last Journey
    • This will apply the exclusion to the first and last journey of the shift

The exclusions will apply within a single journey only - if the exclusion exceeds the miles of the journey then no Travel Reimbursement will be created. This exclusions will not roll over into any other journeys within the shift.

A Commuting Journey is identified using the "Split Shift" system setting to identify the amount of time between bookings before the next journey is considered a new commute. For example if the system setting = 120 minutes then any gap between bookings longer than this period will create commuting travel for the end of the previous booking and the start of the next booking.

Travel in the Mobile App

Mobile App Travel Fields are shown based on the Travel Reimbursement Rate that applies:

  1. Unit Type = Miles
    1. Mileage (Calculated)
    2. Mileage Override
  2. Unit Type = Hours
    1. Duration (Calculated)
    2. Duration Override
  3. Unit Type = Booking
    1. Booking (Calculated)
    2. Booking Override
  4. Unit Type = Miles AND Commuting Travel Rate = Yes
    1. Commute to Shift (Mile(s))
    2. Commute to Shift (Mile(s)) Override
    3. Commute from Shift (Mile(s))
    4. Commute from Shift (Mile(s)) Override

Milage and Travel Duration are calculated using an API via google maps to create the most efficient route.

Attendance Times are required to calculate the mileage and duration for Travel on a Diary Booking Staff record. If an Override value is recorded in the Mobile App this will be sent to the Web App Diary Booking Staff record. Both the calculated and override values are stored in the Web App after the booking has been attended regardless of the Unit Type of the Travel Reimbursement Rate record to enable reporting on Mileage and Travel Time.

Travel in the Booking Drawer

When a Travel Reimbursement Rate is applied the rate and calculated value can be viewed and overridden from the Booking Drawer in the Staff tab:

The field displayed in the Booking Drawer is determined by the Travel Reimbursement Rate that has been applied for example, the applicable rate has a Unit Type = Miles then the Travel Reimbursement (Mile(s)) will be displayed. This field can be overridden once the booking Planned Start/End Times are in the past.

If an Override value exists from the Mobile App this will be the value that is shown in the Staff tab - this will have the option to reset to the original value which is the calculated Mileage/Duration using a Google Maps API call. The Override value from the Mobile App can be overridden again in the Booking Drawer - if this happens the original Override value from the Mobile App is not stored and only the new Override value is present.

Creation of Travel Reimbursements

Prerequisites:
  1. Booking is a Booking to Person (BTC 5)
  2. Booking is attended via the Mobile App

Attendance Times are required to trigger the creation of all Travel Reimbursements, including for commuting journeys. If the booking attendance cannot be logged via the Mobile App then the Attendance Times can be populated in the Diary Booking Staff tab.

Once the Booking has been attended the Diary Booking Staff record will be populated with the Mileage or Duration values. If a Travel Reimbursement Rate applies to the booking then the scheduled job "Process Diary Bookings (Payroll)" will generate the associated Travel Reimbursement record.

Extraction of Travel Reimbursements

Once the Travel Reimbursements have been created they will be extracted into a Payroll Batch. Once extracted the Payroll Batch Extract File is created to enable the passing of Payroll Data including Travel Reimbursements to a Payroll system. For more information on the One Advanced Payroll integration please see this guide: Payroll Batch Extracts

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