Use this screen to update the per diem rates with more current rates provided by the US government. Per diem rates are used throughout Costpoint Travel, and you can download current rates via the Internet at the following web site: http://www.dtic.mil/perdiem/pdrates.html.
If you do not have access to the Internet, ask someone from your systems administration group to download the information for you. The per diem rates are stored in two separate zipped files, each of which contains two text files. At the web site, select the ASCII Delimited Files and download the oconus.zip (international plus Alaska and Hawaii) and conus.zip (domestic, 48 contiguous states) files. Once you download the files, you must unzip them before they can be installed into Costpoint. Using a compression software package, such as PKZIP, unzip the OCONUS file into oconus.txt and oconusnm.txt. Then unzip the CONUS file into connow.txt and conusnm.txt. The files are now ready for use.
You will not need the oconusnm.txt or the conusnm.txt files. We strongly recommend that these files (and all others) be scanned for viruses before you incorporate them into Costpoint. You must upload CONUS rates separately, using only the CONNOW.TXT file, and OCONUS rates, using only the OCONUS.TXT file, so the update per diem process must be run twice.
The government typically updates these rates on a continuous basis (usually monthly). Therefore, you should run this process at least once every month. This is especially important if you are using OCONUS per diem rates, because some foreign countries have rapidly-changing economies.
Enter the file location and name (e.g., F:\user\smith\windows\connow.txt) for the file that contains the new per diem rate information (the file downloaded from the Internet web site).
Click this button to open the Select File Input box, where you can find the needed file and its path.
Select one of the following options for the information contained in the file:
Select this option to obtain file information for the Continental United States. This is the default input file type.
Select this option to obtain file information for locations Outside the Continental United States ("OCONUS"), or any of the following locations: Alaska, Hawaii, and U.S. Territories and Possessions including the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the Northern Mariana Islands (OCONUS/US). Selecting this input file type eliminates the state and city columns from the format when the process is run.
Enter the default percentage of the maximum per diem rate for this file. This is also known as the Alternate Maximum Rate and is a percentage of the government rate.
This is an optional entry. If you skip it, an alternate rate of 100% will default.
The effective date automatically defaults to the current date, but can be changed. The correct format for the effective date is MM/DD/YYYY. This is the first date that the rates are effective.
Click this button on the toolbar to begin updating the per diem rates in Costpoint.