expense reports

llw

How have you handled employees who won't submit expense reports within the time required by company policy?

These are very valuable employees, so there's only so much discipline we want to do.

Dutch2

What is your "required time" policy. We give our ee's one month to turn in their expense reports. We will sometimes have someone that simply forgets to turn it in, but overall no problem with the one month time frame.

llw

It's currently 14 days after the trip. It may be that a 30-day time frame would help, along with a more streamlined method of reporting. We may use the stick of taking away company credit cards from those who won't get their reports in. If it's their card, they will be more likely to seek reimbursement.

Thanks.

NaeNae55

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 06-29-06 AT 04:26PM (CST)[/font][br][br]Employees have until the 15th of the following month to turn in reimbursement requests. We have a published policy that says we will not reimburse expenses that are not submitted in a timely manner. When someone misses the deadline I remind them of our policy and suggest that they go to the CEO to seek a waiver. Employees rarely go to the CEO as you have to have a pretty good reason to get it waived ('I forgot' only works if you rarely ask for reimbursement).


Nae

llw

If you don't mind my asking: how large is your company, and has anyone ever challenged your no-reimbursement policy? (I assume they are using their own credit cards).

NaeNae55

We are pretty small. We tell everyone up front of the policy. They have between 15 and 45 days to turn in their expenses. That is plenty of time. If there was some reason they could not get it in sooner (vacation, etc), we would take that into account. If they choose to pay by credit card, they should still be able to get a receipt or document in some other fashion their expenses. It is not up to us to make sure their billing cycles fit with ours if they choose to pay by card.

Most of our reimbursements are for mileage, so being out cash doesn't come up much. However, last year I bought some supplies for the company and forgot to turn it in. Since I administer reimbursements, I had no excuse. At least it wasn't a lot of money.

Again, I always give employees the option of going to the CEO and requesting a waiver. Other than that, we have never been challenged. Having the policy clear from the outset helps us avoid many problems.

Nae

llw

Thanks very much. This has been helpful.