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2.MasterCard Charges <br />Employees whose job requires them to frequently purchase for the City have been assigned <br />a purchase card (MasterCard) in their name. When traveling, these employees should use <br />their MasterCard to pay for their meal and lodging expenses, as well as expenses of other <br />City employees traveling with them. Credit cards provide automatic receipts and a clean <br />audit trail. They may not, however, be used to obtain cash advances. See Purchasing <br />Section G-4 for additional information. <br />3.Expense Advance <br />As a general rule, cash advances over $125 should be obtained through the PeopleSoft <br />Expenditure system rather than petty cash. The Executive Manager may authorize an <br />advance for designated expenses not to exceed $500. The unused portion of any advance <br />must be returned to the City. <br />Normally the traveler would use the City MasterCard or an advance, not both. <br />4.Reimbursement of Actual Expenses <br />Employees traveling on an actual expense basis will be reimbursed for the actual cost of <br />meals and incidental expenses and should generally attempt to keep costs within the daily <br />expense per diem guidelines, shown below. Employees must produce receipts and account <br />for actual expenses as part of their trip expense reconciliation. <br />5.Per Diem <br />Executive managers may designate employees to receive per diem based on the frequency <br />and nature of their travel. The guideline is based on IRS guidelines and will be reviewed <br />periodically by the executive managers. Depending on the nature of the travel, those <br />employees may elect to use the actual expense or the MasterCard expense policy in lieu of <br />per diem. <br />Lodging and transportation will be paid as an actual expense and are not part of the per <br />diem. Meals charged to the traveler's hotel and meals included in the cost of registration <br />will be considered part of the per diem and should be deducted from the per diem amount. <br />Employees who are authorized for per diem are not required to produce receipts but instead <br />will be reimbursed for expenses according to the following per diem guidelines: <br /> Breakfast $ 7 <br /> Lunch 11 <br /> Dinner 23 <br /> Incidental 5 <br /> Total $46 <br />10/07 Financial Policies and Procedures Manual <br />C_AcctsPayable.docx Page C.8 <br /> <br />