Administration & Finance Policy Updates & Travel Enhancements
The Accounting Office has been busy! During fiscal year 2026, we reviewed and updated many of the Administration & Finance policies in the University’s Policy Portal to ensure they remain current, provide greater clarity, and align with state requirements and University business practices.
We encourage all employees to take a few minutes to review these updates and familiarize themselves with the policies that support your day-to-day work. We’d especially like to highlight two important changes.
New Policy: Use of Ohio Sales Tax Exemption and Reimbursements
A new policy, Use of Ohio Sales Tax Exemption and Reimbursements, has been added in response to the Auditor of State Technical Bulletin 2025-013. The policy provides guidance on:
- Proper use of the University’s Ohio sales tax exemption
- Appropriate purchasing methods when making purchases on behalf of the University
- Reimbursement requirements when personal funds are used for University business
Understanding these requirements will help ensure compliance with state regulations while making the reimbursement process smoother for everyone.
Travel Policy Updates
We’ve also made several important updates to the University’s Travel Policy, including clarification on:
- Use of personal vehicles for University business
- Travel between an employee’s residence and assigned work locations
- Other travel-related procedures designed to provide clearer guidance for employees
Please review the updated policy before your next business trip
Exciting Improvements Coming to Concur Travel Booking
We’re also excited to share an enhancement to the University’s travel booking experience!
The University will continue to require employees to book business travel through Christopherson Business Travel using Concur. Beginning Monday, July 27, 2026, Christopherson will migrate from the Travelport+ Global Distribution System (GDS) to Sabre, an upgraded travel platform already in use by many of their clients.
This upgrade is expected to provide:
- An improved Concur user experience
- Enhanced system stability and performance
- Better access to travel content and booking functionality
What to Expect During the Transition
As with any system migration, there may be a temporary impact on existing reservations. Trips that were booked in Concur prior to the migration may appear in your travel library but may not be editable online. If you need to make changes to one of these reservations, a Christopherson travel agent will be happy to assist you.
Thank you for your patience during this transition as we work with Christopherson to provide an even better travel booking experience.
Watch for the resources below, including updated How-To Guides and helpful links to assist you with both the policy updates and the Concur enhancements.
If you have any questions regarding the Travel policy updates or Concur, please email [email protected].
WHAT IS THE NEW CONCUR TRAVEL?
At SAP Concur, we are evolving our online booking tool to better address the current and future needs of our travelers, customers, and travel partners, by leveraging new technology and adapting to changing market needs.
Delivering a truly intuitive and seamless end-to-end travel and expensing experience that companies can tailor to their needs, and being transparent about planned changes and enhancements, are key to making everyone involved in business travel more effective.
This next generation of Concur Travel transforms the business travel experience by developing the travel platform of the future across our entire travel solution ecosystem.
These are what the new Concur Travel aims to deliver. It’s a journey that will unfold over the next several quarters, with tangible, impactful enhancements rolled out thoughtfully along the way.
What is changing?
The new Concur Travel advances the travel booking experience, so you have more efficient processes, while providing your travelers with the user experience and the fare and ancillary richness they expect when booking on supplier websites or with your TMC.
The new air booking experience offers expanded content and provides better control over booking criteria. Compliance is further aided to help ensure travelers choose the most policy-compliant option. Meanwhile, functionality such as being able to display corporate rates, along with enhanced visibility into air spend, provide additional tools to control travel costs, all while delivering a superior experience for travelers:
- Improved user experience with an intuitive workflow that accurately reflects costs, and provides the information and visibility needed to make the most informed choice.
- Mobile parity provides consistent content between the desktop and mobile platforms.
- Enriched content allows all travel partner offerings to be displayed, which enables better visibility over booking criteria, costs, and policy compliance.
NEW AIR BOOKING EXPERIENCE
What will the end user experience be?
The new air booking experience offers users the following major improvements:
- User experience: Simple and smooth booking experience including a more user-friendly and intuitive user interface.
- Time savings: Optimized booking workflows and faster checkout process.
- Sustainable options: Upgraded comparison in CO2e emissions between offered flights, and additional sorting options by emissions.
- Search capabilities: Omni-search capability providing a more streamlined user experience.
- Content: Increased content sources, better imagery, and richer descriptions, all consolidated into one view.
NEW CAR BOOKING EXPERIENCE
What will the end user experience be?
The new car rental booking experience offers users the following major improvements:
- Time savings: Optimized booking workflows and faster checkout process.
- Sustainable options: Comparison in CO2 emissions between offered vehicles, and additional filter options on hybrid and electric cars.
- Search capabilities: Omni-search capability that combines off-airport and on-airport locations, providing a more streamlined user experience.
- Content: Increased content sources, better imagery, and richer descriptions, all consolidated into one view.
NEW HOTEL BOOKING EXPERIENCE
What will the end user experience be?
The new hotel booking experience offers users the following major improvements:
- User experience: Simple and smooth booking experience including a more user-friendly and intuitive user interface.
- Time savings: Optimized booking workflows and faster checkout process.
- Sustainable options: Display of the property’s sustainability certification, carbon emissions and sustainability scores, and additional filter on hotel properties that have sustainability certifications.
- Search capabilities: Omni-search capability providing a more streamlined user experience.
- Content: Increased content sources, better imagery, and richer descriptions, all consolidated into one view.