Are the reimbursable costs such as travel & meal expenses with receipts and separately billed by construction vendors or building designers capitalizable, and what is the authority code regarding this? Thank you.

The reimbursable costs I am referring to here are the ones separately billed by contractors or building designers whose services are capitalized. My belief was that when the travel/meal/phone expenses incurred by vendors are separately listed on an invoice with other capital costs should not be capitalized but expensed, but my manager had disagreed and instruced me to reclass. (If capitalizing these expenses, useful life would be the same as the capital asset's useful life, as they would be included in the asset cost.) However, now I am revisiting this again. I still believe that separately listed reimbursable costs shouldn't be capitalized, such as itemized (it would be different if these expenses are not separately listed by vendors) capitalized software trainer's travel/meals/phone expenses or those of building contractors' or designers, but I am having a hard time finding authoritative literature on that.

If such expenses are pertaining to the project (Asset Under Construction - AUC), then it should be capitalized.