DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY

Business Office Resources

The Business Office provides support for research administration, reimbursement approval, procurement and payroll for undergraduate students, graduate students and research staff.

Northwestern University has specific policies regarding these items, and those policies must be followed. Any exceptions must be pre-approved by the Dean’s office.

Procurement

Please send Business Office order requests for lab equipment and supplies to physics-orders@northwestern.edu.  Send Center for Fundamental Physics (CFP) orders to Laura Nevins laura.nevins@northwestern.edu and Scott La Tragna s-latrgna@northwestern.edu. Each email must have the requisition order form attached. Please include the specifics of your order and verify the charge string with your PI prior to submitting the request.

The University’s Purchasing department strongly encourages ordering from an NU preferred vendor.  Visit their website at  http://www.northwestern.edu/procurement for a list of preferred vendor contacts and myHR LEARN through the NU Portal for IBUYNU marketplace ordering instructions.  Please contact Julia Blend julia.blend@northwestern.edu at the P & A Business Office or Laura Nevins at CFP with questions regarding procurement.

Expense Reports and Reimbursements

If you have never traveled before, please see your faculty support assistant prior to traveling.

We recommend that all travelers work with your designated faculty support assistant when entering in your report. Please use the “Save for Later” feature so that any errors may be corrected by the Academic Coordinator. Once everything is in order, you will receive an email requesting electronic certification of the report. To keep your receipts organized, we recommend Expensify. 

• All travel and entertainment guidelines must be followed.
• All air travel should be done through the Egencia portal which allows direct billing, or booked through an approved travel agency.
• Any air travel that is not booked through Egencia and is charged to a grant must follow the Fly America Act and the Open Skies Agreement.
• For graduate students and research staff, your expense report must be signed by your advisor and uploaded into the online expense report portal.
• All receipts must be uploaded.
• The use of per diem for meals and incidentals is recommended – please attach the supporting documentation (you may only claim 75% of the per diem on the first and last day of travel and you are allowed to claim less per diem than allowed). Foreign per diem can be found here.
• All amounts are entered in U.S. dollars; please use the OANDA portal for converting your currency (please see your faculty support assistants about how this should be completed).
• All hardcopies and receipts must be turned into the Academic Office for review.
• Please include the agenda from your research meeting/conference.
• More information regarding grant policies can be found on the ASRSP (Accounting Services for Research and Sponsored Programs) webpage. 

Payroll

For all payroll issues, please see the Business Office. Graduate students and research staff are paid on the last business day of each month. If you need to make adjustments to your withholding, please submit your updated tax forms to the Payroll Office at 720 University Place. Please notify the Business Office of any changes in your employment or registration status.