For many sponsored awards, travel represents a significant element of completing the aims of the award. But as with any costs charged to an award, travel costs must be reasonable, allowable, allocable, and consistent. If you will be traveling on an award and charging the sponsor, please make sure you remember the following:

  • Travel must be on/within the dates of the approved travel authorization. If you have to adjust your travel plans, please remember to adjust the travel authorization.
  • The travel must occur during the period of performance (during the life of the award).
  • If required, travel must be included in the award budget and statement of work approved by the sponsor. Even if you have funds available to cover the travel as the award progresses, this does not mean you should use those funds without sponsor approval (if required). You must be fully confident that the travel is appropriate and acceptable to the sponsor before taking the trip.
  • Moving budget into a budget category such as travel if the original proposal did not propose travel could be a change. Please review the FDP Matrix fdpmatrix.xls (live.com) for applicable federal sponsors and/or sponsor terms and conditions to verify if prior approval is needed. 
  • Domestic and foreign travel must be separately budgeted in the award.
  • Make sure that any travel and associated requirements aligns with the terms and conditions outlined in your specific award.
  • You must be able to show the benefit to the award. The amount charged to the award must be commensurate with the benefit received by the sponsor. 
  • Make sure to fully document your travel, including the purpose, the itinerary, what you spent, where it was spent, and be able to justify how it benefitted the award. If attending conferences, have a copy of the program available to upload with your travel and expense statement.  Document how attending this conference/meeting benefits the stated goals of the award.  If you are presenting, include the abstract as supporting documentation.
  • Effort should be charged to the award while traveling. It is an audit red flag when a named individual takes a trip and there is no effort for that individual during the travel time period.
  • If the travel is multipurpose, the costs must be appropriately distributed between funding sources. The sponsored funding source should only bear the proportionate amount of costs aligned with the benefit. If travel includes personal time, report the actual travel days on the travel authorization and the expense report and note in the comments what time period is personal versus business.
  • If attending a conference and presenting on work from multiple awards, be sure to allocate the cost of the trip to all awards that have benefited and be able to defend the allocation plan.
  • Take the time to familiarize yourself with the following:

If you have any questions, please contact Josh Rosenberg at josh.rosenberg@business.gatech.edu.