Access to Travel & Expense Module

To gain access to the T&E Module of CUNYfirst, individuals must complete the CUNYfirst Travel and Expense User Access Request Form — Production. After the completion of all required areas of the form including the supervisor’s signature, submit the form to the Travel and Expense Administrator in Accounts Payable for processing.

Supervisors and departmental approvers must also submit the CUNYfirst Travel & Expense User Access Request form to gain access to the CUNYfirst Travel & Expense module: in order to review and approve a Travel Authorization and Expense Report or reimbursement requests submitted by employees.

The changing of an employee’s role may affect the need to complete and submit a CUNYfirst Travel & Expense User Access Request form. Following is a list of scenarios that require the need to submit a T&E form, but not limited to:

• A new employee gets added as a T&E user in CUNYfirst
• An employee of a Community College transfer to a Senior College
• An employee of a Senior College transfer to another Senior College

Notes:

• Complete only pages one and three of the T&E form (but submit all three pages to the T&E Administrator)
• There are several steps in gaining access to the module and it involves different departments both on and off the college campus. Each department must complete its step first in order for the next department to complete their step.

CUNYfirst Travel Authorization

Per CUNY Central Office, Travel Authorizations are mandatory for all travel expenses. Travel Authorizations are to be created and fully approved at least four to six weeks prior to departure day. Each Travel Authorization must be fully approved before being copied into an Expense Report. Travel Authorizations that are not copied into an Expense Report must be canceled to relieve the associated encumbrance.

Note: Other than the requester, his or her proxy and T&E approvers, only the Travel & Expense Administrator has access to the Travel Authorization in CUNYfirst.

CUNYfirst Travel Expense Report

Each employee and proxy is responsible for ensuring that the Expense Report is complete, accurate and adheres to the expense reimbursement requirements of New York State, CUNY and City Tech. Expense Reports that do not comply with these requirements are returned to the employee and proxy to be modified to meet the requirements. The employee and proxy are notified by email when an Expense Report is sent back by an auditor. Within the expense report, a description of needed changes is stated in the comment box of the Expense Report.

Tip:

• T&E users may find it helpful to prepare receipts for upload into CUNYfirst prior to creation of an Expense Report. The file must be in .pdf form only.
• The “Expense Location Details” must be completed when creating the Expense report in CUNYfirst. Provide the start address in which you left and the destination address in which you traveled to. For non-travel reimbursement, the start and destination address is the college address.