A per diem is a fixed amount for each day of a business trip, instead of collecting receipts for food and lodging. The employee receives it simply for having travelled, and the company relies on the official rates published by governments. Trips become predictable in cost, and finance doesn't have to sort through restaurant receipts.
The section lives in Expense Policy → Per diem.
Where the rates come from
Rates are never invented or typed in by hand — the platform stores the official tables:
| Your company's country | Rate source |
|---|---|
| United States | GSA (domestic), State Department (foreign), Department of Defense (territories) |
| United Kingdom | HMRC |
| Germany | BMF |
| France | official mission rates (arrêté du 3 juillet 2006) |
The source is selected automatically from the country your company is registered in — there is nothing to pick manually. If your company is registered elsewhere, no official rates exist for it yet: the section says so, and you can set up your own table.
The database holds over 2,600 rates across cities and countries.
Why a rate is shown in a foreign currency
Every rate is stored in its source's currency — the French one in euros, the Japanese one in yen — and is never converted automatically. What gets paid is exactly the amount the government published, and exchange rates move daily: automatic conversion would put a figure in your reports that appears in no official document.
Settings can display an approximate equivalent in your company currency next to it as a reference point, but the original rate stays authoritative.
What makes up the daily amount
Depending on the source, a rate may be split into lodging and meals separately, be a single amount, or include a partial-day rate for departure and return days.
On a single-day trip there is no overnight stay, so only meals are paid — the share that applies to a travel day. Lodging is not accrued: you can't pay for a hotel nobody slept in.
Related articles
- Per diem: daily allowances and the per diem calculator
- Per diem settings: calculation, payout and accounting
- Per Diem Rates Reference
- Per Diem: Your Own Rate Table
- Per Diem in Trip Budgets and Expenses
- Per diem in an expense report: how each day is calculated
- Presence: counting days spent outside the platform
- Per diem report in Analytics
Still have questions? Message us in the support chat or at support@travel-code.com — include your company name and the destination in question.