Paying Reimbursements to Foreign Individuals

March 17, 2016

Beginning at the end of April, there will be a new process available to make Business Expense Reimbursements to Foreign Individuals when setting up a new vendor in Oracle. This new process will streamline the current process and, as long as the requirements are met, will not require a GLACIER account for reimbursements to foreign individuals of University business expenses. This will go live in Oracle with the April 24th FINDINI release.

The detailed instructions for this process are outlined on the Nonresident Alien Tax Compliance website at http://nratax.oc.finance.harvard.edu/reimbursement-business-expenses. The basic information for this process is as follows:

  • Confirm that the vendor does not already exist in Oracle
  • Confirm that the payment is a Business Expense Reimbursement and not a scholarship or fellowship payment
  • Confirm that the payment is allowed based on the foreign individual’s visa type
  • Create a new vendor using the Vendor Request Form in Oracle, select the Vendor Type of “Business Expense Reimbursement – Foreign Individual,” complete the remaining fields on the form and submit the request
  • The vendor will be approved for payment
  • Create a Payment Request in Oracle/HCOM and check the box that the payment is a Non-Employee Reimbursement for valid University business expenses
  • Attach the required documentation to the Payment Request as listed in the chart on the instructions page
  • The vendor will be deactivated after 30 days from approval

Also, please note that the Nonresident Alien Tax Compliance website has been updated to include more detailed and organized information for both foreign individuals and Harvard administrators. The new website is available at http://nratax.oc.finance.harvard.edu/. Please bookmark this site for future reference.

For questions, please contact Jodi Kessler at jodi_kessler@harvard.edu or 6-7131.