We discuss the treatment of intrinsic transverse momenta in high energy scattering processes. Within the field theoretical framework of QCD, the process is described in terms of correlators containing quark and gluon fields. The correlators, parametrized in terms of distribution and fragmentation functions, contain matrix elements of nonlo-cal field configurations requiring a careful treatment to assure colour gauge invariance. It leads to nontrivial gauge links connecting the parton fields. For the transverse momentum- dependent correlators the gauge links give rise to time reversal odd phenomena, showing up as single spin and azimuthal asymmetries. The gauge links, arising from multi-gluon initial and final state interactions, depend on the colour flow in the process, challenging universality.