How much scrutiny do your expense reports go through?
 

Just a quick question to those business travelers out there. I've been with a few companies now and it's interesting to show the range of scrutiny I've gotten. I'm not one to abuse rules or push limits or anything like that either, and I feel amongst myself and my friends I'm probably one of the best individuals at scanning my receipts and archiving them.

My workflow is to scan each receipt immediately with Google Drive (Android feature only). That way I capture the timestamp and then dump them to a folder which I later use to submit for expense reporting. I've seen others struggle where they literally keep a full envelope of stuff to scan later.

Very little. I once expensed a box of mini sombreros and didn't get questioned about it.

Under $20 and we don't need a receipt, plus they'll take a screenshot of the line item on your credit card statement in lieu of an original receipt for expenses up to $100.

I've worked at at small companies the last several years. My experience with expense report scrutiny is all over the map.

I had one boss who scrutinized every single line item. If he thought you over-tipped on a meal or taxi fare, he'd warn you about it. "Standard tipping range is 15-17%, there's no reason to leave 25%." He never refused anything of mine on that basis, and I don't think he refused any colleagues' either (not on the basis of a tip, anyway) but still I was like, "Dude, you're the CEO. You have more valuable things to spend your time on. I can help you make a list...."

Then there was the VP I reported to for several years who literally considered it not his responsibility to read expense reports. He'd just sign them and hand them back to be delivered to Finance. He wouldn't even look at the bottom line number.

I've had wildly varying experiences with Finance/back office staff as well. I remember one trip where I had to get a hotel room at walk-up rates at midnight on a busy night in NYC. Ran almost $800 all in. I held my breath for a week after submitting that expense report worrying about it getting rejected but nobody questioned the cost.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, just last week I got a note back from my current employer's finance team about an expense report. "Restaurant charges require itemized receipts, you submitted only the credit card slip," they warned me. "Dude," I wanted to write back, "It's a $9 charge at Wendy's. What do you think I did there?" :rolleyes:

As someone who both reviews/approves expense claims for my department, as well as submits my own for higher review, I think a large proportion of friction over the claims process comes from either the submitter or the reviewer being unfamiliar or non-compliant with the stated policy.

For example, our expense policy requires that all travel be booked via our corporate travel desk, unless a specific exemption is granted. The exemption is routine provided the reason is legitimate (eg. some carriers that cannot be booked by the travel desk, hotels that require direct booking to avail of flexibility, etc..). That does not mean that the exemption should not be questioned by the approver - it should be queried and the reason explained - that is what the policy provides for.

Similarly, if the policy requires itemised billing for restaurant receipts (as well as a list of those attending in case of "entertainment" claims), it should be provided if the claim process is to run smoothly. I never reject claims for the first omission, but if someone continuously fails to submit the appropriate supporting paperwork despite being counseled, they will eventually have it kicked back. Similarly those who submit claims in the wrong currency (we require claims to be filed in USD), or use the wrong exchange rate (inverting the exchange rate is a common error), will have their reimbursement delayed.

Other purchases such as spare parts require a PO# to be linked to the claim before they will be paid out. Our purchasing team will happily generate a PO# after the fact to submit with the claim provided the purchase has been approved through the appropriate channel (in the case of my department, I can sign off on these up to a certain limit). Yet about half the claims I receive for spares or similar have nothing other than a receipt attached. It takes about 30 seconds to fill out a purchase request form, but people don't do it and then complain when I insist on receiving it before I sign off the claims.

Finally, the level of scrutiny a claim receives depends significantly on who is making it and how. Someone who meticulously catalogs their claims with supporting receipts itemised by line number will get less scrutiny than a guy who dumps a ziplock bag full of crumpled receipts on my desk. Someone with a track record of messing up their claims paperwork will be double and triple checked, while someone who invariably gets it right is more likely to get just a cursory review.

my boss has absolutely no time or patience to actually look at the claim besides hitting the approve button.

i, in turn, do the same for my chain of reports. nothing less interesting than looking at how much tip my team gave their restaurant servers.

the only scrutiny comes from the accounting team, which gets shifted around regularly.
and recently, we outsourced it, so for the initial period, the external firm wanted to prove how meticulous they are by sticking to the absolutely T.....

...it was a huge annoyance they've relaxed now once the friction shows up and they've warmed to our "way of working" - so to speak

It varies from place to place. I am not one to expense every little thing along the way nor do I believe business travel is an opportunity to live a lifestyle several levels above what I'm used to. My receipts are itemized and submitted on time.

My approach is to match the level of the scrutiny. If they are reasonable I am too. There are financial overseers however who treat every report like an attempt to defraud them personally. Business travel can be difficult enough without having to be hassled over small amounts and if someone is being a prick about my expenses I'm happy to double down in return.

My favorite episode was when a bean counter refused to reimburse a colleague and I for safety boots we purchased during a trip to Africa when an industrial site visit was added to our itinerary after we'd departed. He refused to approve the expense because according to him we already had safety equipment. The next morning he arrived in his office to find two pairs of boots, heavily caked in red African mud, in clear plastic bags on his desk with a note saying that they'd been left outside and we couldn't be sure what might have crawled into them. After a brief flurry of pandemonium we retrieved the boots and the reimbursement cheque was cut the same day. :)

I LOL'd at this comment.

Two decades ago I worked for a large corp and one day at our branch office I got a call and it was the president on the line. After a quick intro he asked me out of the blue why we were buying the daily newspaper (@ .75 cents) from petty cash, and I replied it was because the branch manager instructed us to do so, in order that he could monitor the ads that were being purchased by our branch. Well, the newspapers stopped the next week.

A company with probably $100MM of gross revenue at the time, 15 branch offices........heh........spread across the entire group this amounted to roughly $3K a year.

The last place I worked where I traveled 2-4 weeks per month had one person reviewing my reports, and I was never called out on anything in 5 years, but, I am also not prone to stretching the rules either. They were truly miffed though when I refused to claim my tips for dinners or taxi's........I only ever claimed the net expense plus taxes.

I'm known for taking somewhat creative routings to reach my destination. In every case, it satisfies my need to explore, uses time well and saves the company money. And it's always approved in advance. But it always attracts attention, at least initially. It dies down eventually, they just end up going "oh, it's him again".

This includes things like third/fourth countries involved in travel to switch between modes (air/train/ferry in particular). Or having a week-long cycle hire in lieu of a bunch of taxis or train fares. Smartcard/contactless public transport fares can confuse centralised corporate expense approvals, I find, too. And it really doesn't help when ferry companies are based in a third country.

(An example, from not too long ago, was when airfares from London to Denmark were booked out due to some conference or other. I ended up getting the bus to the airport, flying to Hamburg, spending the evening in Lubeck, then taking a Finnish ferry from Travemunde to Malmo, breakfast in Malmo, then train over to Copenhagen. So for a simple trip, I had expenses in the UK (on contactless card), Germany, Finland, Sweden and Denmark. I used to occasionally do similar via Berlin (and the Czech-run sleeper train when it still ran).

early early early in my career, i was sent abroad to the uk for an assignment. i had grown up generally as a miser, so while "work" never explicitly instructed to me to be "penny wise", i did so often... at the expense of being "dollar foolish".

to get to the airport in heathrow, with luggage in tow, i would:
(1) get taxi to train station
(2) regional train down to london
(3) switch to metro which involved station changes. sometimes even - gasp - used the heathrow express.
(4) i think back then there was even that terminal-to-terminal train service at heathrow for the carriers i chose

and then one day my-then boss accompanied me to the airport. ordered a bmw 7 series car service from the office to the terminal. door to door.

it hadnt ever even occured to me to use a "car service" for journeys of that length. it cost, for me at that age, what seemed like $$.

but it wasnt that much more than the other trip in net. and in the end it wasnt my money. and its far less painful them storing and filing 4 or 5 different receipts for 1 trip.




....to be young and stupid again.....

Deep scrutiny now, thanks to the actions of a dishonest few who were abusing their cards, and the managers responsible for them who were pencil whipping the approvals without really examining them. It is much more of a pain now, but I am glad they are doing it. I mean really, it was more than just abusing it by taking the family to dinner or breaking a per diem. .it was Match.com, cruises, personal vacations, groceries, gift cards sold online for cash later... Before, we did not have to provide receipts for transactions under 75 dollars...now it's itemized receipts for ANY amount. And I am told the finance people audit 100% of the reports now.

The root cause of the abuse, other than sheer criminal intent, is entitlement. My company is global and in the Fortune 50. Everyone here thinks they are exceptional because they are here and if they are in a leadership position they get even worse. Many think of themselves as entitled to 80's style executive perks like limos at the airport, first class travel, high end car rentals, executive suites etc, despite the fact that policy clearly states otherwise. Even VP's are restricted to more modest accommodation...yet many ignore the rules anyhow.

Obviously, answers to this question will vary a great deal and no real common factors are likely to be found. What the topic is good for however is generating amusing stories involving expenses.

I remember a salesperson who claimed for cross country skis rental. Accounting flagged it and his line manager invited him to explain why he thought it should be accepted. Turns out, a customer who shared an interest in cross country skiing invited him to join him on the local trail. A salesman's gotta do what a salesman's gotta do he told his boss. The expense was approved.

I personally once claimed a parking ticket cost on expenses. I was invited to explain why it should be approved. Fines of any kind were never approved. I was delivering a quote of several 100K, to a government department. Eligible quotes had to be delivered by X hour of Y day. For reasons I won't go into that were not within my control, I arrived out front of the government office with 10 minutes to spare. I parked in a No Parking zone, ran in and delivered the quote. When I came out, the ticket was on the car. A salesman's gotta do what a salesman's gotta do I told my boss. The expense was approved.

But my favourite is a new hire salesperson who got his company car just before Christmas. The company had a policy of paying for all gasoline. In other words, they didn't say, we only pay for gasoline used on business travel. I have known of some companies that would pay for a fill up on a Friday but not on a Saturday or Sunday for example. Obviously, no salesman ever filled up on a Saturday or Sunday, they just filled up on Friday and Monday. Pointless rule really. So this company realizing that, just paid for all gasoline. This new hire, was quite pleased to hear of this and when he returned to work after a 2 week Christmas/New Year vacation, turned in his gasoline expense for his trip to Florida and back in the company car. Around 2000 miles! The claim was paid although he was told he better produce some sales before his next vacation. :D

The very thorough young woman who pays my expenses scrutinizes everything. She's caught several errors I've made, in every case reimbursing more than I claimed.

I work for a state supported university. My travel policy is such that I have to follow the strictest rules between various federal and state rules. Even if my travel funds are from private industry-sponsored grants which are limited in expend-ability to me, it is technically 'state money' and thus follows ridiculous state rules that only get more onerous and ridiculous as time goes on.

If I tip more than 15% for any thing, I pay the difference. If I stay at a "non-designated" hotel, I am only reimbursed up to government set (GSA) rates which can be ridiculously low in many places (and I am not eligible for GSA rates from hotels since I am not a federal employee). If I attend an professional event that charges a fee but includes a meal, my government determined meal reimbursement for my trip is reduced by the entire fee of the event (so, if I decide to attend an 'honors banquet' for a scientific society which includes a meal, for example, I quite literally can get reimbursed for the 'fee' only if I have my total per-diem food costs reduced by that much which completely diminishes the reimbursement to begin with). My mileage reimbursement rate is set by the state, which is cheaper than the federal rate . I only can get reimbursed for expenses within 24 hours before/after my 'meetings' (48 hours if international), though flights can be outside of that time if I prove through quotes that those 'closer-in' flights costs more than the flights I booked (hotels, outside that 24/48 hour window, are not reimbursable ever no matter what), flights must be the cheapest available within a 24 hour window before/after the event given by Concur (or I am only reimbursed up to that amount) no matter the flight scheduling, though for now, they exclude basic economy (on AA) fares. Taxi fares must be backable by taxi estimator tools online. Toll charges must have individual paper receipts (a line on a toll-tag statement doesn't count). Incidentals below 20 $ can be claimed but only by a signed affidavit which likely will get rejected for some asinine reason. I have 4 levels of approval before I get reimbursed, and usually, my reimbursement gets rejected, amended, resubmitted three times before it goes all the way through because even the tiniest infraction, usually a missing quote or paperwork supporting a charge, gets caught by some paper pusher in the bureaucracy and ends up in a rejection that must then start the approval process from the beginning. It gets really fun when I 'split' an expense. If a colleague pays for an uber and I want to pay back half the fee, the friend has to register as a vendor with the university, and provide receipts and documentation of the expense (I did this once, and I will never do it again.). I usually get final reimbursement 30-120 days after I submit my paperwork because of the various issues.

Most trips, I am personally out something around 100-300$ because I choose NOT to take the 5AM cheapest flight, or I do decide to attend 'honors banquets' and other networking events, or I don't bother to collect a toll receipt because either I can't (because the toll road is completely automated) or because it would require removing my permanent toll tag from my vehicle and waiting in cash toll lanes, or I get caught in certain situations where GSA reimbursement hotel rates are not something that can be met (not uncommon to be caught between paying $50 over the GSA rate for a hotel or being so far from the meeting venue that I would have more than $50 a day taxi/uber charges that may not be reimbursed if someone up the chain of approvals decides that the fees are not reimburseable because closer lodging should have been chosen to avoid those charges). Best part yet, under an audit of my travel, I need to prove that my mileage and hotel point accumulations from work travel are being redeemed on other 'work travel' and not for 'personal gain'.

Not to be one of those "entitled" people, but if work did this to me I would either refuse to travel for business or outright quit.

Most of the time my employers haven't cared. Probably the more comical things happened when I worked for a Big 4 accounting firm and in general expense reports where auto-approved, paid, and then questioned later once somebody had time to review it, as long as it wasn't an absurd type of expense or amount. One time I got an email from central finance telling me that I shouldn't be expensing a coffee at Starbucks in addition to breakfast, and they called out one day in October when I had been doing this fairly regularly since April and nobody had said anything. Or one time I was told to cancel my hotel booking because I didn't book at the required hotel. This was in Chicago and we were required to stay at the Palmer House Hilton, unless our daily agreed room rate was sold out, and if it was, we could stay anywhere as long as we didn't exceed our max allowable rate. This was over the summer so the Palmer House rate would be sold out virtually every week and I liked staying at the Conrad. So I go and book my room at the Conrad via Concur for one week 3 weeks in advance (per policy), get an angry email the next day from finance saying I can't stay there and to book at the Palmer House. So I cancel my room, waited like 3 days, the Palmer House booked up and was sold out, and re-booked at the Conrad which was now in policy.

Not my expense report but one of the guys on my team at another job got some flak from our boss for one trip. We were allowed $90/day for meals and this guy spent had free breakfast at the hotel, spent like $5 on lunch, and then $85 on dinner at a steak house by himself (not even with the other people on the trip). My boss looked like he was going to lose his mind because it in his opinion violated the "spirit" of the meal allowance by being that lavish on one meal.

Yup. If you think I spent too much show me how I reasonably could have spent less. No answer, don't expect me to incur reimbursable expenses.

Fortunately, I've always had reasonable bosses.

It can be both ways in the same company after some time...

So what happens when you outsource T/E to India or Philippines? Well, your ER is denied because there is no receipt from $2.75 coin operated parking meter charge (it was actual case with me about 5 years ago). Last year new procedures were placed, with deep analytics of ERs after submission and now about 98% are automatically approved.

Hardly any scrutiny, but I'm not booking luxury hotels or eating at Ruth Chris every night. I've never been told "you can't spend more than $xx on meals, or $xxx on hotels" though hotels depend on the locations. Airfare, yeah, I have had big fights with corporate travel who want us to take the red-eye or the 0500 departures but I've figured out how to game the travel portal so that's not a big problem anymore. I always clear big group meals with my boss beforehand.

I don't question travel spend unless there's a clear need to do so. Most people aren't greedy jerks. The ones who are either don't get to travel anymore, if they're otherwise useful, or they get to enjoy the freedom to find another job.

Per diem is the win-win I think. Now we have policy of US $60 per day for US/EU travel and the only other entries in ER for most people would be hotel, car rental and gas.

Depends where you are. Per diem for us is taxable income...

I'd rather have it as a taxable income and then deduct the amount from 1040 as work related expense than enter $2.75 parking fees and $5 cart rental at SFO line by line...

Then you should never accept a position in government. The rules he lives under are not atypical in government organizations where expenses are often open to media scrutiny.

Yep. It's all about government rules (and I know exactly about the bid deadline issue cited above -- government deadlines are unforgivably set in stone and any company should rather pay a parking fine than to miss a deadline on a bid!). In most cases, it is the state laws that are the most penalizing, which my state legislature passes so they can tell constituents that they are holding government accountable and we bad government 'employees' aren't cheating the "taxpayer". Other states have more forgiving policies but the paperwork/approvals problem is the same everywhere. What is annoying is I very rarely travel on anything that could possibly be actual taxpayer (or even tuition) derived money - the actual money I use for travel is directly traced to an agreed upon budget line in a grant I secured from either federal agencies with more forgiving rules (though, still onerous in many regards) and, increasingly so over time, from private companies who really don't give two hoots about the details in travel expense costs (from both start-up firms surviving on venture capital money, and large companies represented on the DOW). I literally have the state legislature come between me and my research sponsors (while the university is taking a 50% overhead fee on the travel expenses to begin with). If other aspects of my job weren't great, this is something that would help push me into private industry (and is something, nonetheless, that might push me to work at a different state or private university).

Occasionally, we used to have a blow out party called a "per diem buster" on a longer road trip if we all had cash left over. Many a HIX lobby has had cases of empties and pizza boxes thrown out at 200AM.

In Canada it is not taxable :D and my last employer always paid it in cash before you traveled. If I was gone 2 weeks I had $600 US in my pocket that I just put on the c/c and ate IHG hotel free breakfasts and bought a meal at WalMart for every night. Ka-ching !! Pocketed about $7,500 per year.

No accountability whatsoever which was nice. But it never got increased in 5 years either.

Would you change your mind if it were taxed at a marginal rate of over 40%?

I must admit, with my old company's expense system, which even needed you to select the correct VAT rate for the country you were travelling in and the expense type (yes, really) from an at best semi-ordered list, covering current and deprecated rates for every country in the world, it was tempting. At least the countries I visited had a no-tipping culture, so I was spared all that nonsense. But we did have to do itemised public transport accounts (rather than claiming for the smartcard top-up).

Which jogs my memory. The most painful one used to be mobile phone receipts. We were encouraged to BYOD (bring your own device), and we'd claim back phonecalls. Which was pretty good value for the company, as the roaming deals we got were better than the corporate deals anyway. But you had to go through your statement line by line, which was painful.

Then they decided that, rather than claiming at the currency rate your card (whether ATM or credit) converted at, you had to claim at the (pre-filled) bank rate for that day, and then file an additional claim for the currency loading, with documented evidence for it. I think they assumed people wouldn't bother, but they underestimated the bloody-mindedness of someone who feels cheated. In this case, and the case of the mobile phone, I only have online statements, so would download these and edit the PDF so that all personal transactions and unnecessary details were blanked out. Oh, they did not like this. It took a lot of reminders about the law and exactly what was their business and what was not before they backed down.

So yes, per diem is great. But not when nearly half of it disappears to the taxman, and the rest of it is barely adequate to survive on a diet of IKEA meatballs when you're visiting the Nordics.

No.

Because it is not the per diem is taxable at 40%, it is your ordinary income is in the bracket which is taxable over 40%. Congratulations, BTW.

This. Absolutely.

A few years back I needed to go to London from San Diego. I discovered that if I went from Tuesday to Tuesday rather than Monday to Friday, the fares were SIGNIFICANTLY lower...on the order of 3k dollars less. I could save the company 3000 dollars by doing that, and factoring the two extra days of hotel and meals I would still be saving them about 2200 dollars.

I thought I was being brilliant. Over 2 grand in savings..how could they not approve? So I told the boss about it. His response? "We are not paying for you to have a weekend in London". Ok..spend the extra 3000 dollars then..but you were the one who wrote the memo that we need to reduce travel costs.

At another company, they suddenly got strict about rental car preferred vendors. They absolutely insisted I use Avis..however, even with the corporate rate we got, Hotwire provided enough savings to be more economical. Sometimes 50% less for the same class of car. I could have saved the company hundreds per trip..but they wouldn't let me. Avis it was.

One boss actually took me aside years ago, a company with a very easy (non existent) travel policy. Instead of praising me, he gave me a hard time for being number 1 in sales, but number 8 in expenses. He said I was making the others look bad, and that would not be tolerated... That same boss didn't praise me when I received the largest commission check in the 60 year history of the company, instead he called and said he would revamp the comp plan to avoid such large checks. I left the company a week later.

Well, have you ever put examples like that in a memo and sent it to your boss? Sometimes companies don't see the big picture as you say but if they don't see it, then duhhh, someone has to show it to them.

I once got an employer to re-imburse the annual fee I paid for a credit card. My reasoning was that if I used that card to pay for rental cars when on business travel, I did not need to pay for rental insurance as the credit card gave me that coverage. The insurance cost on one rental was about as much as the annual fee for the credit card. It didn't take a genius to figure out that was to the company's advantage and agree to pay it. Even my boss was smart enough to figure that out. :D

What I didn't bother mentioning to my boss was the other perks that card gave me. That's what you call a win/win. The company saved money and I got see extras without paying for the card.

Believe me I tried, and while all agreed, not one single person was interested in logic.

I've never received grief from a boss but from co-workers. I'm not the one who expenses each and every item and if on my own would prefer a quick takeaway meal in my room instead of dining alone at a fine restaurant. I also never expense alcohol unless entertaining clients or local colleagues. It's not the company's business what and how much I'm imbibing. Meanwhile, I watch others expense gourmet meals, hotel spa visits, in-room movies and mini-bars, etc.

However, if the company is giving me grief, nickle and diming, or treating me like a white collar criminal when I submit expenses then I get very "creative" in my submissions. ;)

I know someone who had to pay $600 for a round trip flight from PHL-BDL as well as the associated expenses instead of being allowed to drive his own car. He preferred to drive himself. Mileage reimbursements would have cost much less than the flight and several taxis. He lives an hour northeast of PHL so he had to backtrack, whereas he could drive it in 3 hours each way

A lot of companies have policies against employees driving their own cars on long trips. Years ago at former employer I needed to travel from near San Francisco to visit a customer in Reno, NV. Southwest offered nonstop service OAK-RNO. Figuring it'd be 4 hours door-to-door whether I drove or flew, and driving let me choose when to depart, I drove. At the government rate I billed about $300 for mileage. Compare that to $275 for airfare (that's what a colleague paid for his) plus about $150 for ground transport if I'd flown. Clearly a win.

My boss approved the mileage expense without comment but the back office sent me a warning not to do it again. They suggested renting a car to drive. Hmm, that could be cheaper. That wasn't the explicit policy at that employer. It is at my current employer, though.

I rather suspect #1 in expenses was the boss.

Long, long ago: Conference. My father went and his boss went.

Father: Stayed across the street from the conference, spent reasonably. Boss: Stayed in the conference hotel, spent high, brought his wife along and paid her costs. The end result was the boss's expenses were 4x what my father spent. The boss was not happy!

Yeah, at that range it's most likely cheaper to rent. I've done it on occasion but generally the timing doesn't work.

my employers have had contract rental car rates on the order of $30-45/day with unlimited mileage, so that SF<—>Reno trip (depart midafternoon, all day on site with the client, and drive back that night or the following morning) could have realistically been made for ~$100 plus gas ... and of course the taxes are even lower if you pick up the car at an off-airport location

corporate legal also breathes easier since you’re covered under their insurance policy when driving a rental car on company-authorized travel

I actually prefer to rent a car for lengthy trips, which tends to be cheaper for the company compared to expensing miles. Plus, I hate putting more miles on my personal vehicle.

Foolishly, I had never thought of that. You are likely correct. I'm about as frugal as it gets, and if I'm not with a client, I'm content with Subway for lunch. I've always taken pride in saving the company money.

Anyone highly skilled enough to think big picture wouldn't be working for long in a job reviewing ERs. There's much better jobs out there for those people...