Expense report guidelines
 

I am curious. I travel frequently for my company (+69,000 miles so far in 2004) and find some of our expense report rules to be ridiculous. For example, we are not allowed to expense lunch since if I was in my home office, I would have brought my lunch with me. Fortunately, our manager allows us to just roll that amount into the other meals. Has anyone else experienced something like this?

Also, what kind of per diem do individual companies give you? I am allowed $25 a day, but can go "reasonably" higher with receipts to accompany this.


Thanks for your feedback!

My company allows $35 dollars per day for meals but is really cheap when it comes to airline tickets and hotels,they want us to book the cheapest availible period. :rolleyes: I do refuse to stay at motel 6 and non brand hotels though and fly Southwest.

Quite a bit less restrictive here. $75 per day for meals. Company has negotiated fares with all the major airlines and we're supposed to take the lowest fare offered by any of them. However, we can opt to take a different flight if the flight is 1) a nonstop or 2) +/- $50 difference.

As for hotels, we have a list of maximum room rates for nearly every city in the world... Of course, I don't live in a Motel 6 at home and refuse to stay in one while I'm traveling for work and the maximum room rates are generous enough to allow that.

EDIT: after reading through everyone's replies, I thought I'd add that I don't need receipts for purchases under $75.00.

Oh yeah, forgot about the hotel rates. I usually have to stay under around 100/night but this varies by the city. Its much more in NYC or London. Its not hard to stay under 100/night though since my company has negotiated rates with most hotel chains that is a significant savings over most other rates.

Flights are all in premium classes though and usually INTL F class.

In case you are bored/curious, here is a link to goverment international max per diem rates http://www.state.gov/m/a/als/prdm/2004/31886.htm

I do find it quite odd that your company will buy tremendously expensive plane tickets but then won't feed you lunch, which would probably add up to at most a couple percent of the airfare. I'll put in a bet that the airfare and meal allowance eventually come out of two different sets of pockets.

The company I work for uses these as the basis of its per diem policy.

My company (I'm a consultant) also has the "pay your own darn lunch" policy, which I find ridiculous. We have a set $40/day per diem (slightly higher in NYC and SF) that is supposed to cover breakfast and dinner only, but since we don't have to itemize meals, I generally spread my dollars across the three meals. This is the only set limit; we're just expected to bill "reasonable" expenses for hotel, airfare, etc. back to our clients.

One new change in our expense policies has many of us up in arms: previously, we were able to expense airfare to fly our partners/spouses/etc. out to our client site on the weekend or fly us to another city for the weekend rather than us flying home (assuming air fare was less than what it would have cost for us to travel home). Now the expense for these types of tickets will be taxed as taxable income, thus costing us a not insignificant amount out of pocket to stay at our client site, bill more hours, and reduce some of the wear and tear of weekly cross-country travel.

But hey, at least our per diem just went up from $30 to $40/day.

When I'm home I bring in my own lunch in a cooler. It's difficult to do that when traveling... :(

We use Govt per diem (mostly government contracts), but that's only the limit that the company can charge to the customer. If we occasionally go over the per diem amount we are reimbursed though some overhead or administrative account.

We get reimbursed for actual meals costs but don't have to provide receipts or split out per meal unless any meal is over $25.

My previous employer (a major government contractor) used the standard government per diem. Meals were okay, although I frequently exceeded that amount and gladly paid out of my own pocket. My biggest gripe was that our hotel stays had to fall within gov per diem as well...except that we didn't have access to government rates since we wern't government. Negotiated corporate rates didn't help most of the time although sometimes gov't contractor rates were available. So I'd have to stay at Hampton Inns more times than not. And this was when the gov't per diem included hotel taxes. Thank God they don't do that anymore. When they excluded hotel taxes, that made my life a LOT easier. The plus side was that all airfare tickets were to be booked as refundable, although sometimes I was told to get refundable tickets.

However, the contractor I'm with now is extremely generous. No cap on hotels that I've seen. There is no per diem for meals, and the company will reimburse for reasonable meal expenses. Nice dinners (such as Ruth's Chris) are reimbursed. Then again, I always have a cheap breakfast or lunch. As for flights, we are encouraged to book non-refundable tickets, although if need to, refundable tickets will be issued. International flights are flown in Business. Too bad my department has no international travel. However, we are flown back on weekends if we request it. Not too shabby...

IME, most major hotels will extend Government rates to contractor employees traveling on Government business.

We get a wallet-sized card which contains a small copy of a letter on Government letterhead from some-or-other procurement official identifying the traveler as a Government contractor and requesting the hotel extend the Government lodging rate to us. Within the last few weeks I've gotten Government rates at a Hyatt Regency, Westin, Hilton, and one or two upscale independent hotels. Usually it only requires flashing my employee ID (it's obviously not a Government ID) and saying "I'm a Government contractor" when they ask about Government ID.

Interstingly, typically it's a Hampton Inn that has trouble extending the rate to us.

My company has a thick book discussing in great detail what is allowed for restaurants, food, gas, and other expenses-- but then they toss it all away by saying that if you save money in one department you'll be allowed more flexibility in others. That changes it from a Dilbertian exercise into a rather nice policy; by staying with friends during a conference I can book a more expensive ticket that allows a stopover for instance.

I expense lunch even though I'm not supposed to. I spend around $10 a day on meals (yes, all three of them), which is probably why no one complains.

We have the no reimbursement for lunch policy as well. I find it stupid. However if you take a client to lunch then we can expense it. My client love me -- I am always offering to take them to lunch. :D

We don't have caps for Breakfast and Dinner. Just reasonable. I did however have to provide additional documentation when I turned a receipt for one dinner costing $125. They did pay it though.

We don't need receipts for anything under $25. Amazing how many nights I have $24 dinner.

We have corporate negotiated hotel rates which are really good. Nothing 5* but certainly nice hotels (Westin, Hilton, Marriott). We don't have to stay at budget hotels (Hampton Inn, Courtyard, Fairfield)

All airfare is booked through corp travel agency. Policy is to take the lowest non-stop fare. We have negotiated airline discounts with AA, CO, & DL. Anything over 1,200 miles may be booked in biz class.

I was going to ask what cut-off levels others were at. My previous client needed receipts for all expenses. I had to even get receipts for $0.50 tolls. Currently I can get away with a reasonable dollar without providing proof. A friend of mine has to ask for receipts at Subway and other fast food places that sometimes don't even provide receipts. He also only gets reimbursed if he provides itemized meal receipts. They won't take the ones that just show a subtotal with a line for a tip and the new total. They want to see exactly what he ate and drank.

What about tips? Are they out of your own pocket or do you get those back too? The tips I leave for housekeeping come out of my own pocket.

Yes, I get tips reimbursed. I just put them on the Misc. line and add explanation that says Misc: Tips (housekeeping, bellman, etc.). No receipt needed since less than $25.

My old company had a fairly stringent policy with respect to per diems, travel, mobile communications, etc.

1) Per diems - $40 per day allowed. However, $8 was designated as breakfast, $12 for lunch, and $20 for dinner. You must show the itemized receipts for each meal. If you elected to not eat breakfast, then you simply lost that $8 out of your per diem. If you exceed the per diem on any meal, you pay out of your own pocket the difference. No alcohol allowed at any time!!! No hotel that I have ever stayed at has offered breakfast for under $12. Not all *wood properties offer a free continental. Client lunches/dinners were OK but an itemized receipt must accompany (and expect it to be scrutinized - as in, "Did you really need to order a $75 bottle of wine? Didn't they have any $50 bottles?)

2) Airfare - lowest fare should be accepted however, if there was a business reason to choose another airline and/or itinerary (ie due to flight flexibility, stopovers, etc.) then we could choose it. However we needed to provide written justification and submit that with our expense claim.

3) Hotel - list of preferred hotels in each major city. Not really a big deal because they covered all of the major chains. No in-room movies allowed and absolutely no mini-bar.

4) Mobile Communications- each year you needed to justify why you needed a cell phone. You were only allowed one communication device (ie. if you had a cell phone, no blackberry and vice versa). No broadband hookup allowed in hotel rooms, dial up only (and you needed to use a calling card at that).

I averaged 110-120 travel days a year for the last 3 years and had to put up with this **it. I no longer work for this organization. I understand the need to control expenses, but this place got ridiculous.

The organisation I am currently employed with has the following 'rules and polices' when referring to travel:

Airfare: Domestic - Economy (fully flexible), Asia, Transatlantic and Transpacific sectors - Business Class.

Transport at destination: All car hire and transportation arranged by the organisation.

Hotel: Organised via corporate deals with international hotel chains.

Per diem: $100 - $150 p/day, consolidated total credited to my account before commencement of travel.

Telecommunication: I utilise a corporate mobile, hence all expenses (global roamin) automatically get fed back to the organisation.

Travel Insurance: Organised and subsidised by the organisation.

After reading some of the more stringent corporate policies, I am relieved that I am looked after relatively well.

Regards
tiernan1338
Vic, Australia

As I am not employed, everything comes out of my own pocket. I haven't got a problem with that as I can choose whatever I want ;)
But it seems there are some way too restrictive policies out there, along with some that go a bit over the top.
As an aside and without wanting to provoke confrontation with the person that wrote this, I really cannot see why you would want your employer to re-imburse you for a tip. IMHO tipping as a gesture doesn't make a lot of sense when it is paid for by somebody else ("you did a great job for me, so here's the reward from somebody you've never seen/served").

Here is a different prospective. Why should someone who is away doing the business's work and is forced in a situation that requires tipping have to pay. I personally do not tip more or less than when I am using my own money. As someone who also spends 120+ nights a year on the road can you even imagine what I would be paying in tips? This is a cost for my company to pay as I am on the road for them, not my benefit :)

At my former employer, meals were not reimbursed if the restaurant was 75 miles or less from the home office. Standard per-diems kicked in if farther afield (for example, lunch during a same-day return MIA-MCO business trip was covered).

Perhaps I need to be more eloquent...
 

Cattle, the point I was (unsuccessfully by the looks of things) trying to make is that tipping is discretionary. I only tip when I feel the person has gone the extra mile for me, I can't imagine myself giving a tip to the taxi driver for driving me to the airport or to the hotel maid for changing the towels in my room. On the other hand, I will gladly reward extraordinary performance (like braking speed limits to get me to the airport on time for my flight :D ).
So the way I think of it is : you have to be there because of your employer, therefore you have to stay in a hotel. But you don't have to tip, do you?

I use an online corporate booking engine so if I go outside the preferred airline or hotel I have to give a reason. For hotels the standard answer is event at the hotel.

The interesting thing is you can pay more on the preferred airline carrier and it doesn't flag you. I do this many times to take the connection with jets instead of the commuter.

We also have the policy of no lunch if you are at company facility that has a cafeteria. I think this is because many cafeterias were subsidized (cut backs have eliminated that but I think the rule is still there). Otherwise lunch is OK, if within the per diem for that city.

In the end, if the manager signs it, there rarely is a question.

Sounds like the OP works for a Texan company at the end of a Dallas tollway :) Just recently left that company myself.. but here's some background on many of the silly rules..

Lunch is not a tax deductable expense, therefore employers are happy to give you a $50 deductable dinner but will refuse the $10 non-deductable lunch.. do the sendsible thing and roll them together like the rest of the world does to please the IRS :)

Basically if its not deductable a company will go to great lengths to avoid paying for it.. Entertainment expenses are another one that can be a little sticky.. only 50% are deductable..

Blame the government.. A flat tax would of course eliminate the whole issue.

I feel pretty lucky. I work for a sub of a Fortune 500 conglomerate. We have to book our travel through the corporate Web site and use the company MasterCard for all expenses. The Web site does stupid things like suggest a Hampton Inn in a suburb when you have meetings in downtown Chicago but it's OK to pick a more expensive place downtown. If you pick a higher airfare than the cheapest available you just say it was for "business reasons". (Usually the bargains involve long layovers somewhere.) Occasionally I find cheaper rates outside the corporate Web and my boss encourages me to take them.

No per diem limits. Receipts only for items over $50 charged on the company card and for items over $25 paid for by cash.

In general, I use the "would I spend my own money on this" test when spending my company's money. I'm pretty frugal but will spend extra to save my time or sanity. I've never had an expense account questioned.

My last job had a "no-receipt, no-reimbursement" policy- even for Garden State Parkway tolls. Very annoying. On week-long trips to HQ when I was staying at the Hampton Inn and buying stuff for dinner at the grocery store I had to attach all my grocery store receipts.

Wow, did not think I would get many responses when I posted this topic. I am suprised at how much guidelines vary. And I think my company takes the cake for being the stingy-est. Not suprised though.

Here is why I fly in premium cabins though and have small per diems. Well, for as much as I can say, my company is "directly" related to the travel industry. So there is little to no cost to put me on a plane. I will never complain about riding in first class over the ponds of the world!

However, I am upset that I have to put everything on my own credit card. The reimbursement process takes more than a billing cycle so I end up paying the interest. I am on the road about 120+ nights a year and about at the end of putting up with it. But then, the next day, I am on a plane to a beautiful country/location that has me thinking I have the best job in the company!

Arrggghhhh!!!! :rolleyes:

Tipping conventions vary so much from country to country that this might be a reason for the differences here.

In the US, it's customary to tip the taxi drivers 10-15%, all waiters 15-20%, etc. In fact, waiters and even taxi drivers actually depend on tips for their wages. Waiters usually make below minimum wage ($3 per hour perhaps), with the expectation that tips will cover the rest. If they don't get tipped, they essentially don't get paid.

My boyfriend is an independent consultant, so he pretty much sets his own policy. For per diems he uses the IRS guidelines. For hotels, the client usually has preferred hotels. If not, we use Quikbook or another similar site to find good deals. In general, he usually picks something around $100 in smaller cities and something under $200 in NYC. Location is a big consideration that comes into play.

Often, he selects a hotel that has a kitchen and serves complimentary continental breakfast (Flathotel in NYC, for example). Most travel expenses, including a set per diem, are usually negotiated into the contract with the client upfront. So he draws out the per diem for the week on Sunday, eats lunch somewhere reasonable, then prepares dinner in the kitchen at the hotel. Whatever is left at the end of the week goes into savings. This works out very well.

If I come up to visit for a weekend, I fly up on points, and the client is usually amenable to covering the weekend hotel stay instead of flying him home. This also allows for a saturday night stay which may help reduce the airfare.

For keeping up with receipts, he brings along a roll of scotch tape and several sheets of blank paper. He takes each day's receipts and tapes them to the paper, then labels and dates each sheet. If needed by the client, he photocopies each sheet to send to them. All sheets with receipts go into client files when he gets back home.

He's been traveling each week for 6.5 years, so he has his systems and routines locked in now. :)

Tipping protocols are often debated on this board. It also highly varies from country to country, as mentioned by swise.. In some countries people are insulted if you leave a tip (which I'll never understand) and in some places (like the US) people live off of the tips they earn.

Last year I was on the road almost 250 nights. Lets assume, on the average, I give out $5 in tips per day of travel. This does not include tips added to meals, but does include taxis, shuttle drivers, valet, housekeeping, bellmen and the occasional hostess at a restaurant. That adds up to $1250. That is an incredible expense out of my own pocket for travel my company is requiring me to do. My fellow employee who sits at his desk all year in his home office isn't incurring this expense. I don't think it is unreasonable to expect an employer to reimburse a reasonable amount of tips.

Maybe the point being made was for tips for which you cannot get a receipt for i.e. cash tips?

My company makes me pay everything on my credit card too (except airfare). Which is good for me because I earn miles, but bad for me because I also get reimbursed after interest is charged to my account (because of a long process of getting 3 signatures to approve it).

That said, my company is pretty good when it comes to expense report guidelines. We have $25 breakfast/$25 lunch/$50 dinner limits but for NY it can go up to $75 for dinner. Receipts need to be provided for anything over $25 but they prefer to see every single receipt. With hotels, I'm lucky because I'm forced to stay at the hotel where my meetings are taking place- usually Ritz Carlton, Hyatts, Westins, etc. We were provided a hotel pricing guideline but I've strayed from it many a times. Airfare- they prefer that we book one of the 2 least costly fares. However, with a manager's approval, we can book any flight (just not first class). They never fly us business or first (even international) but they said we can use our own miles to upgrade (nice of them, huh?).

Regarding the strict no-lunch policies, I've never heard of this until reading this thread. I guess I've been lucky. I can expense lunch at my home airport (when my office is only 5 miles away) but I only do this when the flight is 1 or 2pm. I also can expense lunch when I'm at other offices and I usually take a co-worker or two with me :)

We are provided a corporate AMEX. However we are responsible for timely submitting our expenses so we can be reimbursed. Our expense reimbursement is included on our twice monthly paycheck. If you file your expenses timely then you will be reimbursed in time for the due date on your AMEX bill.

Official policy is to use the Corp AMEX for all expenses but I only use it for air travel and rental cars. I have to use it for air travel because they have our corp AMEX numbers on file at the travel agency and we aren't given a choice and I know that our Corp AMEX covers some insurance with the rental car.

All other expenses go on my United Airlines VISA because I want UAL miles. I already have a pile of CO miles, AMEX MR points, SPG Points, and Hilton Honors points that I am now trying to "spread the wealth". Officially this is against policy but they don't say anything about this one.

Unfortunately we are required to put everything possible (basically everything but cabs & tolls) on our corporate credit cards. We're not as fortunate as what prncess674 said about them not saying anything about breaking policy on that...we definitely hear about it. We use Concur Expense, which then when exp. reports are processed generates the payment to our corporate card.

When I joined this huge multinational last year my boss told me I could make terrible decisions to screw up the business and all could be forgiven, but mess up an expense report and I'd be fired.

We are required to book through Business Travel International, and we are required to pay with the corp AmEx. I can have no loyalty to an airline. Just when I was getting comfortable with AA I've lately been forced onto US because their fares are slightly lower. I can choose my hotels. I eat well when I travel. No lunch problems or per diem for me, but they do not permit "entertaining" fellow employees when I visit another site. I can't expense a bar tab, but a couple drinks or wine with dinner is not a problem.

HR told me that if I followed this test all would be OK. So far so good.

My only real gripe is that we are required to submit expense reports through concur.com But this dramatically reduces receipts to submit. We must turn in all hotel folios, and anything over $25 if it was not paid with corp AmEx. I suppose in-room movies & mini-bar are not allowed, but I never buy them when I'm on personal travel.

Does anyone have a good resource for researching tipping protocols? As an American, I am used to tipping generously when I travel (taxi drivers, doormen, bellmen, chambermaids, wait staff, etc.), and although I don't mind erring on the side of over-tipping rather than under-tipping, I do like to know what the local customs are when I travel.