Walsh Travel Award Usage

You may start using the award to pay for conference-related expenses as soon as you are notified.

Yes. However, you must submit your charges for reimbursement before the deadline. For example, if your deadline is June but your conference is in July, you will need to purchase your airfare and conference admission and submit those expenses for reimbursement before June.

You will need:

• Receipts (hotel, transportation, etc. Food receipts are not needed)
• Conference Program/Schedule
• Acceptance Email
• Screencap of suggested hotels from conference website, if you used one
• Flight itinerary and conference fees, even if it was already reimbursed
• Screenshots showing currency exchange rate, if necessary
• To review UW’s Receipt Requirements

How To:

1. Open Workday
2. Select “Create Expense Report”
3. In the “Memo” section, prefix your description of your trip with the following:

WTA_(your last name)_FY(last two digits of current fiscal year)

In your description of the expenses, mention broadly what this expense report will contain, your role, name, department, the name of the conference, where it is, and when it is. Mention the Walsh Travel Award, the total award amount, and the balance available for this expense report. If you have already used a portion of the award for anything, mention it. If you presented research at the conference that is (or will be when published) co-authored by your PI, mention who you are, what your role is, who your PI is, and say that you were representing your PI’s research at the conference.

An example memo:

WTA_Doe_FY26: This expense report is to cover hotel and transportation expenses for graduate student John Doe (Dept. of Neuroscience) to attend the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado, from May 1-8, 2026. John won a 2026 Walsh Travel Award from the McPherson Eye Research Institute. This award provides funds to trainees who are presenting at professional conferences in their field. The award covers travel, lodging, and other conference fees up to $1500. The remaining balance of the award is 904.72 after flight expenses (already reimbursed). At the event, John presented his poster, “They should really put a word count on these things”, which was co-authored by his PI, Dr. Pepper (Dept. of Neuroscience), and John was representing his research at the conference.

4. For “Expense Report Date”, use the date from the earliest expense to be reimbursed in this report.
5. “Business Purpose” is Conference.
6. Do not touch the “Company on Expense Line”, “Program”, “Grant”, or “Project”.
7. For “Gift”, search “Walsh Research Fellowship”. Selecting this will automatically update “Cost Center”, “Fund”, and “Function”.
8. Select “OK” at the bottom of the screen to create the expense report.
9. Under “Attachments”, drag and drop your Conference Program/Schedule, Acceptance Email, and Flight Itinerary or Conference Fees. Basically, anything that is not directly related to a receipt. When in doubt, you can always attach these documents again to an Expense Line.
10. Move to the “Expense Lines” tab. Click “Add”.
11. Each receipt will need to be on its own Expense Line. Start by adding a receipt to the Drop File box and giving that receipt a description. Naming it “hotel receipt” is enough.
12. Adjust the Expense Date to the date of the charge if it is not already.
13. For “Expense Item”, use the box to search for an appropriate label for the expense. If you are unsure what to use, selecting a category will make a description for what that category applies to pop up on the right of the screen.
14. For “Total Amount”, put the final amount that was charged to you on the receipt.
15. If the receipt is for an amount that is not in USD, change the “Currency” box to the currency that was used. This will make a “Currency Rate” and “Converted Amount” box appear. For “Currency Rate”, you will able to get the exchange rate by looking at a credit card statement or bank receipt. Attach a screenshot (with non-related sensitive information censored) of the statement showing the conversion rate to this Expense Line. If you paid in cash, use Oanda and take a screen shot of the rate for the date of the expense and a screen shot of the converted amount.
16. For “Memo”, begin your description with the same prefix you used before, then describe the expense. If there is anything of note about this expense (for example, the total amount on the receipt is not the amount you are claiming on this line because you split the cost with other travelers), mention that here.
17. As before, ignore the “Program”, “Grant”, and “Project” blocks. Make sure the “Gift” line matches the one you used on line 7 of this guide.
18. Depending on the “Expense Item” used, you may have additional information to fill out. Fill out any blanks that have a * in front of them. Some information might have already pulled from the receipt you attached.

*Please Note: If you have to fill out “Departure Date” and “Arrival Date”, they are poorly worded. “Departure Date” is the date of your first flight (for Airfare) /check-in date (for Lodging) /first day of trip (for Per Diem) /first day of attendance (for Registration, Tuition, or Training Course) and “Arrival Date” is your final flight/check-out date/final day of trip/last day of attendance.

18. Ignore the Itemization Line.
19. Once the Expense Line is complete, select “Add” to start a new line or “Submit” if you are done. If there is something you missed, a red exclamation point or yellow question mark may appear under the Expense Line amount at the left of your screen or you may have a red or yellow popup banner on the right side of the screen. Clicking on the banner will explain what information is incorrect or missing from your Expense Line.

Common Expense Items that have more rules:

1. Per Diem – You can claim a per diem for the duration of your trip. This is how you will receive reimbursement for the meals you had during your trip. Do not create expense lines for individual meals or coffees. You will need to add the first and last days of your trip and destination. A “Travel Journal” will populate for each day of your trip. Click “View Details” to edit. Open your Conference Schedule and mark any meals provided with the cost of your ticket into the journal, even if you did not attend that meal. Filling out the journal will automatically calculate the total you can claim as your per diem.
2. Lodging – Hotel expenses. You will need to provide the first and last days of your stay, location of the hotel, and number of nights you stayed. The Merchant should auto-populate from your attached receipt. If your hotel cost exceeds the nightly maximum rate, you will need to provide an Expense Justification. If the reason the hotel exceeded the nightly maximum was because it was the conference hotel or suggested on the conference website, attach a screenshot stating that. If you checked in early or checked out late, you will need to remove the cost from the Expense Line and create a new Expense Line with “Early Check-In/Check Out” and add an Expense Justification.
3. Taxi and Ground Travel – also for ride shares, buses, subways, and any other inner-city travel. It is fine to use a screenshot or photograph for your receipt. For the “Memo”, you will want to explain where you were picked up and where you went. Generally speaking, transportation that isn’t to or from the airport, hotel, your home, or the conference center will get flagged and you will need to justify why it was necessary.
4. Travel Reduction – Use this if, after adding up all of your expenses, it exceeds your current award balance. The total amount should be a negative number that balances our your reimbursement to the amount of award balance. In the Memo, mention the Walsh Travel Award and your current award balance.

When in doubt, consult your financial advisor on the expense reimbursement process.

If unable to attend the meeting for which a Walsh Research Travel Award has been awarded, the recipient must notify McPherson ERI administration so that the award can be extended to another qualified applicant. Carryover of an unused award is not permitted.