Expensepath Blog Travel Meals vs. Per Diem

Continuing the theme from our previous post on business meals, this post will focus on other types of meal reimbursements we see from our customers.Other than business/entertainment meals where the employee is hosting other attendees, the primary type of meal reimbursement we see is travel meals where an employees is away from home as part of their job. There are two ways we see these expenses handled:1) Submission of actual meal costs or2) Claiming a set per diem amount for the dayFor companies that require actual meal costs, employees must submit each individual expense (like for each meal) and must provide their receipts. Most companies require receipts for any expenses above $25, but some have lower thresholds. Some companies set allowances per specific meal (i.e. $20 breakfast, $20 lunch, $40 dinner) so partial travel days are appropriately tracked but most set a daily allowance and employees can spend any way they like within that. The per diem covers an entire day of meals and does not require a receipt so needs to be below the IRS receipt requirement of $75.Occasionally, I see a company that provides employees a choice between actual expenses or per diem. In these cases, I suggest that there should be a difference to incentivize providing receipts such as $75 per day with receipts or $46 per diem (I suggest $46 per day because it is the standard IRS per diem for most places in the US).Employee travel is necessary to help companies manage and grow their business. Companies recognize that travel is a burden to the employee so policies need to strike a balance between watching the bottom line and maintaining employee morale and goodwill. And policies should not be set in stone - overages will happen and should be evaluated and approved whenever legitimate, which is hopefully the majority of the time. We have customers who are utilizing any of the methods described above and have found that ExpensePath helps their employees do their part more easily and then also automates checking compliance within those rules.- Vik Agrawal (vik@expensepath.com)