The Federal Government will not reimburse certain expenses, termed “unallowables” and has set forth guidelines prohibiting these costs from being charged to Federal grants and contracts, either directly or indirectly. 

These “unallowables” include expenditures for alcohol, entertainment, flowers, gifts or excessive costs, such as first or business class travel and lodging or meals over the designated University threshold amounts.

To make sure that the University does not inadvertently charge any of these expenses to grants and contracts, “unallowable” expenses have been assigned a special series of (8500) sub-codes.  For non-grant accounts "unallowables" are segregated to an 8500 series sub-code and for grant accounts “unallowables” are segregated to a non-grant account.

The terms "unallowable" or "segregated" do not mean that the expenses are not reimbursable, but that they must be charged to a series 8500 subcode.