The university pays directly or reimburses individuals for expenses that are necessary and appropriate to conduct university business. Expenditures must be consistent with the university’s purchasing policies and guidelines as well as the guiding principles and IRS regulations with regard to business and travel expenses.
This article provides helpful guidance on recent updates and common questions that the Business Expense Team receives about expense reimbursement policies and processes. For common questions related to travel, visit Stanford Travel Updates and Hot Topics.
For general help with business expense and reimbursement questions, contact the Financial Support Center.
For questions about purchasing and contracts, visit Purchasing and Contracts Updates and Hot Topics. The page provides guidance on recent updates and common questions that the Purchasing and Contracts Team receives about purchasing policies and processes.
Effective January 1, the Internal Revenue Service increased the per-mile reimbursement rate from $0.67 to $0.70 for using a private automobile for business purposes. The per-mile rate to use a private automobile for moving expenses ($0.21) did not change.
The 2025 mileage reimbursement rates are now available on Fingate and updated in Oracle Financials. For reference, the rates for 2024 are also included on the Fingate Resource page and still apply to travel expenses incurred in 2024.
The Stanford Diversity and Access Office, in partnership with Employee & Labor Relations (University Human Resources), Faculty Affairs, and the Stanford Office of Accessible Education, recently shared an update to the travel medical accommodation process. The processes for Stanford faculty, staff, and students to request medical accommodations for university-sponsored travel has been updated to align with the existing medical accommodation process (as described in Administrative Guide [AGM] 2.2.7 Requesting Workplace Accommodations For Employees With Disabilities).
Effective December 9, travel accommodations (including airfare medical waivers) must be approved by the appropriate authority. If a Stanford faculty, staff, or student needs medical accommodation for university-sponsored travel, they must follow the process documented in the support request (Submit Approved Travel Medical Accommodations for Faculty, Staff and Students) before booking their travel.
Visitors seeking a travel medical accommodation should submit a request through the department sponsoring their travel.
For guidance on requesting travel medical accommodations for faculty, staff, students, and visitors, and submitting related transactions in the Expense Requests System (ERS), visit Business and Travel Expenses.
Effective November 12, in Oracle Workflow Notifications, the rejection reason options for approvers of Expense Requests System (ERS) transactions have been consolidated and realigned for clarity. The Class of Airfare and Local Travel rejection reasons have been replaced with a new option: Review for policy alignment. This new option may be used for any policy-related issues and will decrease the use of the more general Other rejection reason. The consolidated rejection reasons are:
- Incorrect allocation or expenditure type
- Insufficient Business Purpose
- Missing documentation/receipts
- Review for policy alignment
- Other
The change enables approvers to provide clearer, more helpful transaction rejection reasons for preparers. It also allows approvers and finance managers to more easily and accurately analyze ERS rejection data (within their departments and/or schools and units), which is available in the OBI Expense Request Efficacy Dashboard.
Recent updates to the Expense Requests System (ERS) now allow preparers to more easily upload multiple attachments to ERS. Preparers may use the Choose file button in ERS to select and upload multiple receipts to a single transaction line, rather than uploading each receipt separately. This functionality, available for all ERS transactions as of this month, was previously only available when uploading files within eReceipts.
In the spring of 2024, several other changes were also made within ERS to make it easier to upload attachments. The changes include:
- An expanded list of allowable characters to use in file names (based on campus feedback), which includes:
- parenthesis ()
- dash/hyphen –
- underscore _
- dollar sign $
- period .
- comma ,
- ampersand &
- apostrophe '
- plus sign +
- A specified range of file formats for attachments, to ensure that auditors can open a file and it does not become stuck in the system. The supported file formats for attachments include: .heic, .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .gif, .pdf, .txt, .doc, .docx, .html, .rtf, .xml, .xls, .xlsx.
- If a file format or special character is not allowed, an error message appears that lists the allowable characters/file formats.
These changes support administrative efficiency for preparers by reducing the number of steps needed to attach multiple files; preventing unreadable files from becoming stuck in the system or returned; and providing guidance on allowable file formats and characters within Oracle.
The changes to attachments in ERS will also become available soon within the Purchasing Card (PCard) module.
The Business Expense team regularly reviews meal maximums to adjust them to the Consumer Price Index (CPI). As a result of the most recent review, effective October 14, 2024, the maximums for business meals increased by: $5 for breakfast and lunch, $10 for dinner, and $5 for receptions or refreshments. Dinner and reception maximums can still be combined when both are provided as a part of the business meal.
For reference, these are the previous business meal maximums:
Previous Meal Maximums Effective through October 13, 2024
| Meal | Per Person Maximum |
| Breakfast | $45 |
| Lunch | $80 |
| Dinner | $150 |
| Dinner + reception | $170 |
| Reception or refreshments | $45 |
The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) has released the Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) continental United States (CONUS) per diem expense rates effective October 1, 2024, through September 30, 2025.
Visit the GSA’s Per Diem Rates to access the new FY25 rates (searchable by city, state, or zip code).
For trips that took place prior to October 1, the previous FY24 rates can be accessed by selecting “2024” from the For Fiscal Year dropdown menu.
Concurrently, the Department of Defense (DoD) released the FY25 rates effective October 1 for Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. Territories, and Possessions (OCONUS rates).
For more information on reimbursement methods (e.g., per diem rates and actual expenses), see Topic Overview: Business and Travel Expenses.
