expense acct question
 

hi guys,

my company is cutting our travel policy and before i talk to my boss abt it, i thought i'd get a survey to see what its like at other companies.

1. usually one would need a receipt above a certain amount, say $25. what is that amount for u?

2. if u hv are given a corp card (amex, etc), is its use mandatory or can u use ur personal card?

just to start the ball running, we used to have a $25 limit but now its $10. what really bugs me, is that now i'll have a whole stack of receipts instead of an entry in my .xls marking how much i spent; this gets old on my multi-month trips to asia. we also used to use our own cards (points etc), but now it is mandatory to use the corp card. most ppl feel that since its our credit rating at stake, we should use our own cards.

-Yes (AMEX CORP) $25 (start and still)

-Mandatory (or provide explanation)

-We refer it as the "Bean Counter Full Employment Policy"

MisterNice

The $25 is an IRS requirement. Anything beyond that, they are just being a PITA (or seeking to save jobs in accounting)

FYI -- If you use a corporate Amex you can often tie the MR points into your own Amex MR account with a call to Amex. As noted above, $25 is an IRS requirement.

IRS req ?
 

To answer the original questions: receipts for over $50 and we are required to use our corporate card; we are also required to use the corporate travel agency. It creates a dilemma when the travel agency can't seem to get the corporate hotel rates yet you can get the rate when booking directly with the hotel .....

I thought the IRS limit was now $75 ?? I had pushed my former company to move to per diem for meals/laundry/tips for under that amount, but they wanted itemization and receipts ...... (and yes, it was the bean counters' full employment policy !)

I work for a smaller company, and they want reciepts for everything (we do our expenses weekly). If accounting wants reciepts for every .35 toll, it's fine with me. They give us an AMEX corporate card, but use is not manditory. Depending on the type of account your employer has, you can sign up for AMEX rewards.

1. $25 is very common - both at firms and at clients.

2. Most companies say that their corp card is mandatory, but the enforcement of said policy seems to vary wildly. Per diem policy tends to vary as well. My old employer went by actuals only (which sucked), but my new one goes by per diem based on the city where one is working - no receipt required for per diem itself.

The $10 is a crock. Its like when doing consulting work at a client which demands a receipt for everything. I honestly believe that some companies are just trying to save money by consultants' not being able to keep track of so many receipts.

thanks for the replies! i just realised that i posted this in milesbuzz, which might be inappropriate; if any moderator feels that another forum is more appropriate, pls move the thread over.

my reaction to the $10 thing is, either (a) the company does not trust the employees it sends out on trips or (b) someone in accounting is trying to create jobs. the way our ceo put it, it seems like (a) is the reason -- something along the line of "cost cutting" was given. perhaps like nd_eric_77 said, someone is trying to make the employees eat the travel cost. since the ceo announced this policy, it makes me wonder if any amount of complaints would work, but i thought i'd survey fellow travellers here to get an idea of what the "market" is like in case some mgr decides to say that the new policy is "in line with practices at other companies" ... as they've said with every policy change in the past.

no one seems to remember that "you pay peanuts, u get monkeys"

is there a word for this? as in, is there a buzzword to say to the amex rep so they'll know immediately what i want?

Policy
 

Reciepts for everything, EXCEPT Meals. Meals are a $35 max per day. Your on your own to expense what you spend up to $35. Hotel, Airline and Car all have to be on your corperate card.

On another note, corperate cards came into favor when the IRS said that you DON'T need reciepts for charges made on a company credit card. For cash based reciepts i believe it is $75.

Is it true that the IRS doesn't need receipts for items charged on the corporate card? Does this mean that I wouldn't have to submit my hotel bills, airline tix, ect. if I use the corporate card (according to IRS policy, of course)...is there anywhere you can reference this?

Thanks

Depends what "everything" is... At my old employer, where they had a direct feed from Amex to the Time & Expense system, the amex feed sufficed for everything EXCEPT for hotels (since hotel charges on the amex bill are not itemized). My new employer uses DC, and does not have an inbound feed from them (though they DO have the ability to pay DC directly for my DC-charged expenses).

I'm going to move this to TravelBuzz -- fully recognizing that there are several past threads on this very subject in that forum. For additional context just do a search of travel policy or expense reimbursement.

Regards,
Gary
aka gleff
MilesBuzz and Delta moderator

1. All expenditure must have a receipt, unless you can state a good reason why not (e.g. taxi driver had run out of receipts). For lost receipts, an extract from a credit card bill can be used, as long as this is not a regular occurrence.

2. Corporate cards are optional, and, once you've got one, its use is still optional.

1. Receipts for anything over $25 (exception being our $40/day per diem for meals. No receipts needed for this). This is below the current IRS requirement. Reason being is that many clients require receipts be furnished to them for all expenses over $25, so we set the bar at $25 for all client work.

2. Corporate Amex use is mandatory (though not very heavily enforced).