Let’s break this down:

  1. The furniture rental is included in your lodging per diem; therefore, the lodging per diem is based on the zip code of where you stay (excluding HSTA).
  2. Let’s use OB Med clients as an example (90 days per diem, no sliding scale, single pregnancy) and say their lodging rate is $98/day (a conservative example). That comes out to roughly $11K.
  3. Their lodging budget is “Use or Lose” – they (through TDYR) use $11K to rent furniture (so they don’t lose it.)   
  4. Thus, the signed contract is a furniture Rental Lease Agreement for $11k. It’s proof of purchase of a rental contract. It has the power of a receipt. Therefore, we encourage these clients to submit the contract, in its entirety, as early as possible so that they can receive $11K into their bank account asap.
  5. Then we would charge the client for a total of four times at the beginning of each month for a collective total of $11K.

Think of it like this. You go on TDY to Phoenix for three days. You’re entitled to rent a car, so you do so. They charge $20 per day. Then Alamo charges me $60. I turn around and give the government that receipt (AKA proof of purchase/record of a contractual exchange) for $60. I then receive the $60 from the government.

The government knows that within the $60 there are baked all sorts of things: rental car company overhead, employee salaries, profit, operations/maintenance of their fleet, the soap used to wash the vehicles, the polo shirts worn by the clerk, etc. No different here. Every expense of every company is ultimately passed along to the end user. 

So rest assured, Submit the $11K TDY Rentals Lease Agreements to the government, and they’ll send you $11K.