Employee Outsmarts Manager And Gives Company A $500 Cab Bill After They Say Bus Tickets Can’t Be Reimbursed
Expense reimbursement is a method for paying employees back when they spend their own money on business-related expenses. Travel is usually one of the main parts of this policy. So when redditor u/SugarWine was traveling for work, they thought their bus trips would be covered. They weren’t. You see, their company demanded a receipt for everything. So, since the bus drivers wouldn’t give receipts, u/SugarWine had to find other means of transportation. A taxi…
Image credits: Flickr (Not the actual picture)
Image credits: SugarWine
When talking with senior managers of a large company, Liezl Groenewald from Ethics Institute heard one of them ask whether it is okay to bend the rules from time to time if it is for the greater good of the company.
“Performance-based judgment calls are managerial decisions to bend the rules because, in doing so, company or individual performance will be enhanced,” Groenewald wrote. “This is typically related to rewarding employees for good performance by making exceptions to established rules.”
“Faulty rules refer to ambiguous, out-dated or simply wrong rules in the eyes of the manager.”
Moreover, a study by the Academy of Management Executives (USA) revealed that 70% of executives bend company rules. When asked why they do so, they mentioned three rationales for rule-bending, namely performance–based judgement calls, faulty rules and socially embedded norms.
“Organisations need to build a culture where the emphasis is on following the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law. A code of ethics should thus not be predominantly rules-based, but rather a combination of rules- and values-based.”
People had a lot to say about the whole ordeal
I am surprised how people don't seem to understand the need for proof of expenditure. How do they think accountants justify spending and balance books and file tax returns? You can't just randomly pick numbers and hand out money to employees without some evidence. It would be easy to purchase some kind of monthly bus pass and have proof of purchase for that. There are lots of logical ways around a problem that don't involve screwing the company. Failure to show proof of expenditure could be interpreted as embezzlement or tax fraud. It's not a stupid policy. It's common sense for anyone with half a brain to understand how any organization has to do its books.
Basicly the ticket( if printed on paper) is the receipt?
Load More Replies...
Every place I've ever worked you could just show the bus ticket you uses to get reimbursed. It has the time stamp abd everything. Can't believe this didn't occur to anyone in this situation.
Sounds that these were the sort of busses where you just pay, and don't receive a ticket? Plus everyone seems to bend over backwards in expecting all busses to work just like the ones at (their) home.
Load More Replies...
Once place I worked for allowed a certain amount for travel and a certain amount for each meal while you were at your training/convention/whatever they had you doing. Before you left you were given the money, and whatever you did with it was your own affair. If you wanted to eat steak and lobster every meal or if you wanted to go to the grocery store and buy cheap eats, it was up to you, they would just only pay that much. If something came up outside that, then you justified what you did with receipts. To me that is so much simpler.
We have a similar company policy- you have X to spend on meals per day, and whether you use that in one go to buy for the week or per day is immaterial, as long as you don't exceed the budget. Receipts are required if you use your company credit card (audit purposes), but if you receive and allowance (incl meals and travel) you can use the money for whatever you like and don't have to submit receipts (tax regulation). Works fine.
Load More Replies...
It is bad accounting practice to not have a receipt for anything you reimburse for employees. It isn't the company being d***s, it's just them doing a good job and preventing questions from auditors when they get auditors. That being said, I recently had a colleague who had a 90 cent mileage claim rejected because they questioned the validity of the journey (despite having a receipt) so she ended up get a 25 euro taxi the next time she had to do that trip. Sometimes, accounting clerks can be real jobsworths about expense claims.
I had a similar situation. I used to have to travel to another office about once very three months. My employer would reimburse me for travel expenses for which I had a receipt, although car mileage reimbursement did not require a receipt per policy. The office was in a major metropolitan area served by a very efficient transit system, but the transit system did not provide receipts or other proof of payment for the fare (about $6 USD). The first time I went to that office, I used transit and submitted a claim for reimbursement sans receipt, and had to jump through multiple bureaucratic hoops. Eventually, I received the reimbursement but was told that it was a 'one time only exception'. Consequently, every other time I went to that office, I drove (no receipt required) and parked at a commercial parking lot (where I got a receipt). It cost my employer over $50 USD for me to drive (between the mileage reimbursement and parking , vs $6 if I had taken transit. But at least I had receipts!
What kills me is that his company was fine with the extremely wasteful $500 for taxi fare and didn’t care that they could’ve saved $485 of it by okaying the bus fare. YET they’ll cry poor when employees (especially the lower ranking, non-traveling, non-executive ones) ask for a $1/hour raise—-or lay them off entirely!
How can there be "no way to get a receipt for a bus ride"? It's called a bus ticket...
Many places have no tickets for the bus. In my city, you pay to get on the bus. If you don't pay, you can't get on. No tickets, no inspectors, no transfers.
Load More Replies...
Swiss Military brain fart of principal called me in the office. Reason: I had spend Sfr. 9.- ( equals US Dollars) for drawing material needed for lessons, not in the city where the school was located, but in a other Kanton (like State in US) during my day off. The price was in the whole country the same, but he was eagerly looking for a reason to p**s on me. Imaging how much payed time he must have wasted mining for "crimes" of critical teachers!
It would never occur to me to ask for reimbursement for a $1.50 bus ticket (even over that many days).
worked as an expense reimbursement analyst and we have this 75$ threshold for missing receipts. Over that, you need to have receipts or you need to have your Boss’ approval before you can reimburse it. If you used your travel card or personal cc, then you can use the statement of account as proof of payment.
Policies are not made by people that rarely travel. Policies are made by accountants that have to explain every nickel and dime for financial statements. There always has to be a paper trail because, sure enough, the year you don't have a receipt to back up an expense..that's they year the IRS will go ballistic and audit you. Audits are expensive and tedious. Better to pay the extras for silly things like laundry than waste several months with Bob the Auditor and his 10 volumes of IRS do's and don'ts.
I pay expense claims in the UK. Two things - a receipt is required, however, even HMRC (gov.uk) don't actually want receipts for less than £10, so I'll use my discretion if I have a claim for £500 but missing one receipt for £3.50. The second thing is we pay evening meals up to £25 but there is one chap who frequently does a weekly shopping at a local supermarket and claims it as an evening meal. Best will in the world a man cannot live on gummy bears and raw chicken breasts.
The US government has done the same sort of thing. When my car was shipped overseas due to change of station orders. I chose to drive to the port of entry with my car. rather than have the government pay to ship it to it.( also got car to me 30-45 days faster) cost per mile was way cheaper than having it shipped to it, or the alternate to drive on the day I left, then pay a cab to carry 4 people from port of entry to airport (plus luggage at 0h dark 30 in the am) it would have cost maybe 200 more to do it the correct way. but nooooo. the 80 dollar way was not allowed.
Many countries have things like the Oyster card where you can register online and it shows the exact time and date the card was used. What country is this?
So do you pay cash in those kind of buses? And what if you need to switch lines, do you need to pay every bus separately? Sounds like a weird system (and dangerous to carry so much money as a driver). We used to have tickets that you stamped, so you could use those to prove you paid and now we have digital passes who are connected to a website where you can see exactly where and when you checked in and out. It's quite understandable that you don't get reimbursed if you can't prove you paid for something.
Yes, in my city anyway. Cash, or show your monthly pass. And pay again when you transfer. (The driver doesn't "carry" the money, there's a machine that the money goes into and cannot be retrieved from.)
Load More Replies...
Read the whole article. The employee DID proactively approach management.
Load More Replies... I am surprised how people don't seem to understand the need for proof of expenditure. How do they think accountants justify spending and balance books and file tax returns? You can't just randomly pick numbers and hand out money to employees without some evidence. It would be easy to purchase some kind of monthly bus pass and have proof of purchase for that. There are lots of logical ways around a problem that don't involve screwing the company. Failure to show proof of expenditure could be interpreted as embezzlement or tax fraud. It's not a stupid policy. It's common sense for anyone with half a brain to understand how any organization has to do its books.
Basicly the ticket( if printed on paper) is the receipt?
Load More Replies... Every place I've ever worked you could just show the bus ticket you uses to get reimbursed. It has the time stamp abd everything. Can't believe this didn't occur to anyone in this situation.
Sounds that these were the sort of busses where you just pay, and don't receive a ticket? Plus everyone seems to bend over backwards in expecting all busses to work just like the ones at (their) home.
Load More Replies... Once place I worked for allowed a certain amount for travel and a certain amount for each meal while you were at your training/convention/whatever they had you doing. Before you left you were given the money, and whatever you did with it was your own affair. If you wanted to eat steak and lobster every meal or if you wanted to go to the grocery store and buy cheap eats, it was up to you, they would just only pay that much. If something came up outside that, then you justified what you did with receipts. To me that is so much simpler.
We have a similar company policy- you have X to spend on meals per day, and whether you use that in one go to buy for the week or per day is immaterial, as long as you don't exceed the budget. Receipts are required if you use your company credit card (audit purposes), but if you receive and allowance (incl meals and travel) you can use the money for whatever you like and don't have to submit receipts (tax regulation). Works fine.
Load More Replies... It is bad accounting practice to not have a receipt for anything you reimburse for employees. It isn't the company being d***s, it's just them doing a good job and preventing questions from auditors when they get auditors. That being said, I recently had a colleague who had a 90 cent mileage claim rejected because they questioned the validity of the journey (despite having a receipt) so she ended up get a 25 euro taxi the next time she had to do that trip. Sometimes, accounting clerks can be real jobsworths about expense claims.
I had a similar situation. I used to have to travel to another office about once very three months. My employer would reimburse me for travel expenses for which I had a receipt, although car mileage reimbursement did not require a receipt per policy. The office was in a major metropolitan area served by a very efficient transit system, but the transit system did not provide receipts or other proof of payment for the fare (about $6 USD). The first time I went to that office, I used transit and submitted a claim for reimbursement sans receipt, and had to jump through multiple bureaucratic hoops. Eventually, I received the reimbursement but was told that it was a 'one time only exception'. Consequently, every other time I went to that office, I drove (no receipt required) and parked at a commercial parking lot (where I got a receipt). It cost my employer over $50 USD for me to drive (between the mileage reimbursement and parking , vs $6 if I had taken transit. But at least I had receipts!
What kills me is that his company was fine with the extremely wasteful $500 for taxi fare and didn’t care that they could’ve saved $485 of it by okaying the bus fare. YET they’ll cry poor when employees (especially the lower ranking, non-traveling, non-executive ones) ask for a $1/hour raise—-or lay them off entirely!
How can there be "no way to get a receipt for a bus ride"? It's called a bus ticket...
Many places have no tickets for the bus. In my city, you pay to get on the bus. If you don't pay, you can't get on. No tickets, no inspectors, no transfers.
Load More Replies... Swiss Military brain fart of principal called me in the office. Reason: I had spend Sfr. 9.- ( equals US Dollars) for drawing material needed for lessons, not in the city where the school was located, but in a other Kanton (like State in US) during my day off. The price was in the whole country the same, but he was eagerly looking for a reason to p**s on me. Imaging how much payed time he must have wasted mining for "crimes" of critical teachers!
It would never occur to me to ask for reimbursement for a $1.50 bus ticket (even over that many days).
worked as an expense reimbursement analyst and we have this 75$ threshold for missing receipts. Over that, you need to have receipts or you need to have your Boss’ approval before you can reimburse it. If you used your travel card or personal cc, then you can use the statement of account as proof of payment.
Policies are not made by people that rarely travel. Policies are made by accountants that have to explain every nickel and dime for financial statements. There always has to be a paper trail because, sure enough, the year you don't have a receipt to back up an expense..that's they year the IRS will go ballistic and audit you. Audits are expensive and tedious. Better to pay the extras for silly things like laundry than waste several months with Bob the Auditor and his 10 volumes of IRS do's and don'ts.
I pay expense claims in the UK. Two things - a receipt is required, however, even HMRC (gov.uk) don't actually want receipts for less than £10, so I'll use my discretion if I have a claim for £500 but missing one receipt for £3.50. The second thing is we pay evening meals up to £25 but there is one chap who frequently does a weekly shopping at a local supermarket and claims it as an evening meal. Best will in the world a man cannot live on gummy bears and raw chicken breasts.
The US government has done the same sort of thing. When my car was shipped overseas due to change of station orders. I chose to drive to the port of entry with my car. rather than have the government pay to ship it to it.( also got car to me 30-45 days faster) cost per mile was way cheaper than having it shipped to it, or the alternate to drive on the day I left, then pay a cab to carry 4 people from port of entry to airport (plus luggage at 0h dark 30 in the am) it would have cost maybe 200 more to do it the correct way. but nooooo. the 80 dollar way was not allowed.
Many countries have things like the Oyster card where you can register online and it shows the exact time and date the card was used. What country is this?
So do you pay cash in those kind of buses? And what if you need to switch lines, do you need to pay every bus separately? Sounds like a weird system (and dangerous to carry so much money as a driver). We used to have tickets that you stamped, so you could use those to prove you paid and now we have digital passes who are connected to a website where you can see exactly where and when you checked in and out. It's quite understandable that you don't get reimbursed if you can't prove you paid for something.
Yes, in my city anyway. Cash, or show your monthly pass. And pay again when you transfer. (The driver doesn't "carry" the money, there's a machine that the money goes into and cannot be retrieved from.)
Load More Replies... Read the whole article. The employee DID proactively approach management.
Load More Replies...
119
54