Travel orders & per diems

Travel orders (potni nalogi) document business travel and drive the per-diem (dnevnica) calculation, which has its own statutory rules separate from regular expense reimbursement.

Creating a travel order

A travel order records who’s travelling, the destination, the purpose, and the travel window (departure and return date/time). Per-diem amounts depend on trip duration and destination (domestic vs. abroad), so get the departure/return times right — a trip that crosses a per-diem duration threshold by even an hour changes the allowance tier.

Policy enforcement

Travel orders are checked against your company’s travel policy — allowed per-diem tiers, approval requirements above certain amounts, and which cost centers can be charged. A travel order that falls outside policy is flagged for approval rather than silently booked.

Per-diem calculation

The per-diem is calculated automatically from the travel order’s duration and destination using the statutory rate tables, then reduced for any meals already covered by the employer (e.g. a paid conference dinner) per the applicable rules. You don’t calculate this by hand.

Expenses on top of a travel order

Actual travel expenses (transport, accommodation, tolls) are recorded against the travel order separately from the per-diem — the per-diem is a flat statutory allowance, while expenses are reimbursed at actual cost against receipts. Keep the two distinct; combining them into one number breaks both the payroll treatment of per-diems and the expense audit trail.

Common mistakes

• Entering the wrong departure/return time and only noticing after the per-diem tier already changed the payout.
• Booking meal expenses as regular travel expenses instead of flagging them as employer-provided meals, which double-counts against the per-diem.