Here's the deal: we here at PSS don't make most of the rules. Travel money approval comes through the PSS department, TTU Travel Services, and sometimes even the Office of International Affairs or the Graduate School. This is a bureaucracy. There are levels and levels of rules, and this absolutely applies to deadlines.

Pay attention to the deadlines on the forms you are using. Submit them as soon as you know your travel plans so there is plenty of time to fix things if you ignore this guide and fill them out incorrectly.

The "Dates of Travel" are the days you are leaving from your home and returning to your home.

If you will need to receive your reimbursement prior to travel instead of afterward, check the "Advance Needed" box. This is helpful if there is a major expense and you can't wait to return from the trip and for the full length of the reimbursement process to pay it off.

If you are traveling with multiple people and sharing a hotel room (or any other expenses), each person needs to pay their portion and submit their own request forms. Do not have one person pay the full price and split it up on your own afterward. That might seem like a simple solution, but the university needs to have the forms completed in a certain way. Each traveler needs to have their own receipts to turn in. The bureaucracy needs its paper trail.

The university will not reimburse alcohol purchases. Because of this, ALL food receipts MUST be fully itemized. If the university cannot look at a meal receipt and absolutely know they aren't paying for an accompanying glass of wine, they can't fund it.

Go ahead and describe what you're doing and how your travel will benefit the university. There is no such thing as 'too much detail' on these travel forms. The good people at TTU Travel Services really, genuinely want to know why we're spending money.

All registration fees must be paid on the advising faculty's P-Card.

When you list your conference on the travel request, please don't just put the organization's acronym. There are so many acronyms. Every American Society of Plant Stuff has its own version of ACASAPPSSA, and we don't automatically know what they each mean. Spell it out for us, please.

International travel is a situation which requires you to be fully aware of deadlines. It goes through the Office of International Affairs, so its rules are not our own. For instance, when they say forms must be turned in 30 days prior to travel, that is not a deadline over which the department has any control.

Check out the International Travel page for more.

Want to stay for a few days after your conference is over for some relaxing vacation time? That's perfectly fine! We just need to know about it beforehand. The university will not cover expenses during the non-educational vacation time (extra hotel nights, extra meals, extra taxi rides, etc.), so they need to be marked properly when everything is submitted.

There's a field on the travel form for "Additional Information", but what actually needs to be included? Here are some common issues that crop up:

• extra days of travel
• room sharing
• cost-saving measures
• any abnomalities you think we might need to know
• did I mention that there is no such thing as 'too much detail'?

If you intend to request travel funding from the TTU Graduate School, know that:

1. They have their own set of rules and deadlines,
2. There are too many graduate students at this university for them to bend their rules for you, and
3. Really. They won't budge.

The PSS department has no say in the matter beyond providing some approval signatures. When the TTU Graduate School says that all funding requests must be received at least 30 days prior to travel, they mean it. Check out their Student Travel site for more.

Ask Donna Cantu (PSS Business Coordinator extraordinaire) for advice. It is much easier to talk with Donna beforehand than it is to apologize to Donna and TTU Travel Services after submitting your forms incorrectly.

Phone: (806) 834-5073

Email:donna.cantu@ttu.edu

Office: Bayer Plant Science, Room 122E