Travel Card Program

St. Lawrence University will provide, upon request, a free corporate travel card to faculty and staff who regularly incur reimbursable travel and entertainment expenses while on University business. The card is restricted to expenses associated with travel such as airlines, trains, taxis, hotels, restaurants and should not be used for personal expenses or the purchases of goods and services not associated with business travel and entertainment.

The travel card is issued by M&T Bank pursuant to a license by VISA. Cardholders will receive an email notice on approximately the 8th day of each month that the billing statement for prior month charges is available online. Employees must then log on to CentreSuite, M&T Bank’s online tool for reviewing card transactions and creating travel expense reports, and view the charges posted to their account. Employees will have until the 25th of the month to substantiate all charges posted to their account by submitting online expense reports. Employees do not need to wait until the billing statement is prepared however, they may access CentreSuite at any time to view transactions posted to their account and create moving expense reports. More detailed instructions for accessing CentreSuite and preparing travel expense reports is available at CentreSuite Travel Expense Reports.

Once employees complete their travel expense reports and attach receipts, they will submit online and the expense report will then be available for their supervisor to review in CenterSuite. Supervisors must approve or reject the expense report by the 25th of the month so that expenses may be reconciled to card charges and uploaded to the university’s accounting system by month end.

The IRS requires that payments to and on behalf of employees be substantiated as business travel within a reasonable amount of time. For this reason, charges on an employee’s corporate travel card that are not substantiated within 60 days by a travel expense report and required receipts will be considered taxable compensation to the employee. The appropriate amount of payroll taxes will be withheld on the amount in the employee’s next salary payment and the employee’s corporate travel card will be cancelled.

Employees requiring a travel card should complete a travel card agreement form and forward to their appropriate vice president or dean for approval. The approved form must be forwarded to the Business Office and a card will be ordered for the employee. It generally takes one to two weeks for employees to receive their card. Instructions will be included with the card on how to activate it and one requirement is to provide the employee’s identification number which is their SLU ID preceded by two zeroes.

If an employee encounters difficulty with their travel card, they should call M&T Customer Service at 1-800-443-8671. For security purposes, M&T will ask employees to state card number as well as their Social Security number. Rather than providing their Social Security Number, employees should provide their identification number which is the employee’s SLU identification number preceded by two zeroes.