Subject: Hospitality Policy

Source: Office of Finance, Administration & Budget (FAB)

Date Issued: March 21 2018

Updated 10/22/2024 to reflect new 5,000 threshold 

Updated 7/29/2022 to change Source section

Date of Last Revision: October, 2024

SOP Number: 1.0

Rationale: To aid fiscal officers in understanding and applying the campus hospitality standard operating procedure (SOP) relative to the university policy (see Cross References section).

SOP: In the past, the campus has approved all hospitality requests for events, meetings, pizza, etc. Note: The approval process for alcohol is a separate policy. Effective October, 2024 the campus no longer requires campus pre-approvals for hospitality requests under $5,000. However, this does not negate adherence to the university hospitality expenditures policy regarding appropriateness and allowable expenses. With this change, the RC (Responsibility Center) will be responsible for ensuring the propriety and reasonableness of the hospitality expenditures for adherence to the university policy and not solely the guidelines of this campus SOP. The provost, deans, and vice-provosts can establish their own processes and set their own thresholds for hospitality expenditures. There is some concern from units as current hospitality requests are coming to the campus administration and not to the RC level. Without the campus review, units would like to have some method to review.

The campus is collaborating with the IU Foundation on the campus preapproval requirement before distributing funds related to both hospitality and alcohol. There is work occurring with the change at the university level where some units are both BL and UA. IUPUI is not requiring preapprovals and IUB will gradually move towards this same path. Consider this SOP the “soft opening of the policy” as FAB works through unit needs. If requests come in, the campus will continue to approve during this interim period.

Cross References: Office of the University Controller: Hospitality Expenditures, FIN-ACC-50 and Role of Fiscal Officer, Account Manager and Account Supervisor, FIN-ACC-1, Purchasing Hospitality reference, Indiana Sales Tax Matrix

Responsible Organization: Office of Finance, Administration & Budget