Beckles

Our small company reimburses $20-$40/month for cell phones for all professional employees ($40/month for managers and above, $20/month for all others). We also recently got AirCard's which we have a pool of seven of that we share that are paid for directly by the company (since they're flat rate regardless of usage business v. personal usage is not an issue like cell phones are).

I would think the challenge you face is that if you cut the allowance for current employees now you're taking money out of their pockets, which may not go over well. I think what you're doing now is probably the best plan, if anything maybe you could not pay future non-traveling employees the same, but I would not cut the allowance existing employees get, it's really not worth the trouble I would think.

deubster

Our plan is similar to the suggestion from SRQ Guy. We are small (25-30, depending upon the week) and buy family plans in groups of 4, each with about 2000 unlimited minutes + nights, weekends, & same carrier free. We've tried to match up heavy users (I use 3/4 of my group's minutes) with light in-house-only types in each grouping.

The company pays for everything. If a group exceeds allotted minutes, stern emails & mentions in meetings will follow. Users can get a new phone every 2 years when they become free (off contract), and the company will pay up to $200 if you want a high priced model - beyond that comes out of employee pockets. The company also gets the insurance on each phone. If you need anything beyond these provisions, it's out of the employee's pocket.

infinityplusone

This is what my company does as well. Although I am not sure of the personal cell phone expense amount per month since I have never done it. I assume it is between $50 and $75.
For the BB my department gets around 600 minutes of talk a month, unlimited data. Sales department gets 1k or more talk a month but don't think they get unlimited data. We do more email, they do more talk.
We have been told, use up the minutes (business and personal)... they are paid for.

I have only been questioned once when I have gone over my minutes, which I only do on average about once a year (always because of our company issues and dealing with unhappy $$$ paying customers). I let the phone person know why and they said Ok. Never been questioned again.

Personally, it would annoy me to no end to have to line item an expense for my phone. So much so that I would probably just buy my own and not use it for company needs or very limited use.
IMHO, if you (company) are not going to (easily) pay for me to be available 24/7 then I am not going to go out of my way to be 24/7. But if you are paying (as they are) I will definitely take calls at all hours and reply by email immediately so the customer thinks I am sleeping by my computer. Hey, it makes the company look good!

Robbiedeluxe

Wirelessly posted (Nokia E61i: Opera/9.50 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/4.0.10406/298; U; en))

Our company policy is very simple:

- You may request up to 1 new cellphone a year.
- All phone expenses are paid by the company, limited to about $400/month.

Our plan allows us to call for free within the company and does also come with an unlimited data plan, so many of us have laptops equipped with internal SIM card slots enabling UMTS (3G) and HSDPA surfing on-the-go.

Cromely

My company reimburses the actual bill up to $100/month for field employees. Anything over that the employee is responsible for. We supply our own phones. For office based employees I think there are lower amounts.

LIH Prem

If you want to keep it simple, pay for the sales people and others that need connectivity for work all the time. Get calling cards (prepaid, even) for people that only travel occaisionally, with the policy that the calling cards are only to be used when the employee is on work related travel.

My company has calling cards I can get, but I just use my own personal cell phone for my own calls when I travel. If I travel overseas, I'll just pick up a SIM with cheap rates to the US when traveling.

Some companies have $400 per month cell phone allowances? Wow, that sounds absurd.

-David

indo79

I work for a large company and depending on your rank, you are required to carry a BB, others at your manager's discretion.

I was given one (not to my liking) and I do not see the bill ever, and I take it to roam in China and Singapore when I am on vacation (contradictory I know) but I liked the functionality of the BB so much I replaced my personal WM phone with my own personal BB

thegeneral

Get the sales people Blackberries and give the others calling cards. Tell them they are allowed one call of reasonable length per trip. Most mobile plans include nationwide long distance calls, so they really shouldn't be using a lot of minutes. You could always include this in the per diem.

roberto99

I worked for one (quite raunchy) company for a short while ~5 years ago. Most of us were in the field a lot.

We got a flat rate of $75 per month to apply to our personal cell bills through expense reports (tax free). We also got company long distance cards. I used my card whenever possible.

Frankly, I cleaned up on the plan. Others, with no self control, didn't like it.

canuck_in_pa

I can't actually find much info on our cell phone reimbursement. Everyone in my customer-facing organization has a cell phone and/or a blackberry. I'm not sure how things are in other parts of the company but I don't believe everyone gets their cell phone reimbursed. The travel policy does say that if you don't have a company-reimbursed cell phone then you should get a company phone card before traveling.

It also says that people on family share plans should divide up their receipts and submit only their own portion. The detailed bill must be submitted but personal calls and other lines can be blacked out. I believe that expenses over $100 may get flagged for audit. I did have a bill over $300 once (spent most of 2 weeks at a customer site, without access to a landline). I pre-emptively went through it and separated the personal calls (2%) from the business ones (98%). I never heard anything from accounting.

Oh, also, I believe that we're allowed to expense $150 for the phone/bb itself every 2 years.

Craig6z

In my industry (insurance brokerage) almost all professional staff has their cell bill paid for. If you use a company supplied Treo for both voice and mail, the firm will pay the bill directly. Some people carry both a Treo for data and a personally purchased phone for voice, in that case the monthly phone bill is to be processed through an expense report. Non-Treo phone hardware is not reimbursed, except for replacement batteries.

For those who's phone expense is direct paid, there is no limitation on total monthly usage cost. AFAIK, they company has a deal with Verizon that overage minutes from an established plan, are offset by pooled minutes from those not actually using their full allocation,

bdjohns1

We're also allowed to get new phones annually. We don't get data cards for our laptops though - we use iPass for roaming WiFi access. Although our plan doesn't officially allow it, I've tethered my phone to my laptop in a pinch.

kellio33

In my company if it is considered business necessary the phone and plan are paid for under 1 contract. My director gets the bill for 50 cell phones.
We are limited to what type of phone we can get, i.e., no camera phones as we work with sensitive data. This helps keep the expense of phones down.

Those that don't travel often or don't a business justification for a cell phone have AT&T calling cards and expense as necessary.

Whatever path you choose keep in mind the amount of administrative work that you or your staff will need to do expense line item by line item. It may end up being more cost effective in the long run to have company paid phones even if they end up using them for personal use.