Good rant. Makes me feel better shit like this.

Sounds like a lot of businesses these days watching the pennies.

Record profits most likely because of the bean counters being very strict...

We traditionally had a very relaxed expenses policy but it's getting tighter and tighter making it more expensive for me to work for the company!

Just go in and tell them No good moaning here really is it !
Unless your Boss posts here ?

My days in accountancy practice were utterly horrible for various reasons like this. My current employer is generally a lovely place to work for, in return I feel an immense amount of loyalty to the organisation and am happier doing the extra mile for them.

I work for a FTSE100 company and have several hundred pounds outstanding on the corporate credit card for a taxi halfway across the country to solve a problem. It's now three months overdue and the snotty letters from Lloyd's are really beginning to get on my tits (they come addressed to me, for some reason).

The expenses system allows the payment to be made directly to the card, so it's entirely dependent on someone in management clicking “Approve" on a webpage somewhere.

I agree with you about how shortsighted they can be; the company can whistle if they want me to do something similar in future. The only good thing is that the missed payments etc are ending up on their credit file, not mine.*

* I think. Might just check this... 🙂

What a twunt! Makes mine look human.

your choice. go somewhere else if you don't like it.

hint: everywhere else is like this now. bean counters never waste a good crisis.

There's no argument that the results are in part due to attaching the pennies. I agree with most of the measures we have in place.

However, we run people into the ground and spend a sodding fortune replacing good people because we're treating them as consumables rather than assets.

A little flex in one place would save a lot in others...

Fozzicist
My employer is just as bad - large telco

They'll send managers to meetings at the drop of a hat
But team members have to have all travel " pre approved"
They even stopped bottled water ( tap water is vile )

Our unit leader suggested that overnight stays at Xmas were un necessary
Despite a 5am start and 400 mile journey
Sure I'm not going home same day !!!

I just won't travel now or do extra hours
It's a 2 way street

dab - Member

I just won't travel now or do extra hours
It's a 2 way street

This....

See it all the time at large corporates. Ridiculous penny pinching, usually towards their staff, when they are pissing away vast sums of money elsewhere on projects that typically never see the light of day.

Welcome to the future.

I took one of my teams out after a major milestone, pub lunch. paid for it all myself, and tried to claim a single round of £26.38 which worked out less than £2 per person. I had to get the FDs signature....

And then good staff get pissed off and leave (its the good ones that go, they are the ones in demand) and you have to spend thousands of pounds recruiting a replacement, non productivity time during training etc etc .

short sightedness in the extreme

And then good staff get pissed off and leave (its the good ones that go, they are the ones in demand) and you have to spend thousands of pounds recruiting a replacement, non productivity time during training etc etc .

short sightedness in the extreme

I don't have to work very hard when I'm in the office but overseas trips are bloody knackering and it's only my cycling fitness that gets me through the flights, late nights, early starts, meetings, stress, time changes and bad hotel rooms. We are expected to treat the lolly as if it was our own and nobody ever questions my expenses; if I want to splash £250 on one night at a smart airport hotel in order to save two trips right across a big congested city, that decision is not questioned.

Our company is successful and one of the reasons is low staff turnover meaning a very experienced staff. The expenses policy is one of the reasons for that.

We have similar problems although not quite on the same scale. The hypocritical nature of things is unreal. We recently had a 'costbusting' scheme designed to save money where possible. One of them was to recycle stationary. Ideal for all those half used post-it pads etc but while we are all scratching around using secondhand biros our director has dropped two Blackberry's down the loo and upon replacement two of the other senior management wanted 'one like his too' so we ended up paying out for 6, SIM free handsets, 4 of which were totally unnecessary and 2 could have been avoided with some care.

Staff are hugely demoralised and overworked, doing two jobs each most of the time and then people wonder why stuff goes wrong, doesn't get done properly or sometimes, just not done at all. Over Xmas we were open for the first time in a good few years, three extra days. No management at all were on site during this period as they 'needed a rest'. 😡

Globalti . Are you me ?

My boss refused an expense once.

He wont do that again.

Now it was few years ago when I introduced a client of mine to my MD. ( now my client was waiting for an urgent job to be manufactured)

Hi Dave, I'd like you to meet J, from so and so. After the usual pleasantries I announced to Dave that rather than wait here I had offered J to take dinner with my wife and daughter but because we were white heterosexuals J has declined. J is effeminate and of British Indian decent.

J mouthed an insult, Dave looked down and mumbled something and moved off.

The business I was with then treated its staff poorly to say the least and you made the best of the opportunities that presented themselves.

J's still a client.

On another occasion the MD's son who "worked" in the business sat opposite me but was severely getting on my tits. The phone system went on night service over lunch time and I used my mobile to ring the office. I picked up and

No I'm sorry Simons out. No I've no idea when he's back. Well you know he's a fat fucca so he's probably between a Pizza Hut and mc Donald's. laugh loudly while listening and then, are you've noticed that as well with his PH levels...if only he spent as much time selling as he does eating then he'd smash his target.

By this time fat Simon was less than impressed and I was just entering act two when his old man walked in the room. Only for the fat one to say " dad Martin's being really rude on the phone about me to a client"

I came clean, his old man looks at his son with a look of annoyance and I was mimicking dad dad

Simon's still fat

Boredom and resentment eh! Oh how my life improved immeasurably when I left that business.

To the OP, if they treat their staff like that now after record profits, have some fun and get out before things get out of hand and profits drop then the situation will only go one way

slowmart

EDIT: I was being slow, sorry!

That moment when your [s]employer[/s] boss asks you who you are is just plain embarrassing...

i've been there nearly 6 years 🙁

Our place has cut expenses big time...no more breakfast or lunches can be claimed because some senior people used to take the pee with big expensive, unnecessary lunches. Those of us who have to be on site early or late suffer.

We also stopped ordering stationary...no pens, pads, dividers etc. They have also stopped keeping printer cartridges in stock. You can guarantee that the day they run out is the day you are trying to get contracts out. The car allowances and car scheme keep getting cut too, well for the plebs anyway the directors are all running M3's etc.

We're doing ok profit wise, my team is snowed under and our department is carrying the company. It does feel like we're constantly getting crapped on from above with very little thanks fir going the extra mile.

I'm glad it's not just me that thought that!

My one time boss once questioned why my outbound/inbound bus journeys to/from the railway station were not the same, as if I was trying to swindle the company out of 70p.

This makes me feel fortunate. Our expenses policy is don't take the piss...

How about the prison service? (public sector ovbiously)
It's decided that cuts need to be made, 12 'governors' (also called the 'Senior Management Team', & all on between 35K - 50K a year) sat round a table & decided to make cuts on prisoners food. So now the food is so bad that a huge majority of it goes in the bin cos the cons won't eat it.
Now I can't make my mind up whether we're saving money or chucking it away. 🙄

My old boss got an £6000 expenses claim rejected as it included a 30p toothbrush- they went through a stack of receipts about an inch thick to get that. Time well spent.

I had to make a trip to the us and was asked to stay over the weekend to take advantage of the lower airfares. But it did cost an extra night in a hotel and sundry meals costs. Saving about usd1000 but costing about usd200. I asked if I could take the girlfriend for the weekend, paying the airfare but assuming her meals with me would be covered. My boss rejected my expenses and make me take her part of the meal off. The ill feeling caused by them rejecting less than usd50 so they could save 800 instead of 750 lasted a long time.

The one that really hacks me off is when I get threatening letters about the team phone bills because one of the finance team has lost the invoice, they put them in the head of branches name so I get regular threats about non-payment because finance are apparently unable to file properly.

Hurrah to be in the public sector!

To be fair jon that sounds fair enough to me tbh.

My rejection was a reject for 60 quid of junk food sent in remotely.

It was rejected " you dont think thats excessive for snacks"

" yes i do - but its not snacks if its your breakfast dinner and tea is it ?"

I default to junk food when in shit countries rather than get deli belly if the food establishments look dodgy.

Not to me it wasn't. It smacked of greed and an inability to look at the larger picture of how the company came across. We want you compromise on your personal life and give up your weekend to save us usd800. We won't sub you 50 in recompense.

It wasn't the money, it was 50 bucks. It was the message that was embarrassing.

Claim for everything the rules allow, down to the penny. 'cos they'll take the penny off just as easily.

I default to junk food when in shit countries rather than get deli belly if the food establishments look dodgy.

I got into a row with finance once over a £12 mcdonalds receipt when I was in Geneva, the issue being the meeting had finished gone 3am and the only place open was the McD's in the centre, Finance couldn't accept that swiss junk food is stupidly expensive and were more concerned about the honesty of the bill than my £40 charge from Cafe de Paris the previous night.

I too work for a FTSE100 company.
When people visit the head office site, they're not allowed to park on site due to space issues.
So I have to tell them to drive to another site a mile away which is essentially a building site, they park up there and get the rickety minibus over. At busy periods the bus isn't big enough so they have to stand there 15 minutes at a bus stop waiting for the bus to come back.

It's hugely embarrassing.

My boss refused an expense once.
He wont do that again.

I travel a lot with work, a week here and there which meant last year I took 34 flights and was out of the country for 16 weeks. At one stage I was in the US for three weeks away from the family. Every night I'd call home and speak to the missus, normal practise, I do it in my normal life what's different when on business?

Three week phone bill accounted to £350, I was told we get a £5 expense a day for calling home, not so much when you look at the cost of mobile to mobile calls from the US! Any way, long story short, I had to foot part of the bill to get the expenses claimed after much back and forth via email. The cost wasted with me messing about far surpassed that the company saved.

New boss now, same company, but he understands the business travel thing, the old boss didn't and I think that was half the battle. Those that write the policies on expenses, and request you to "obtain a receipt" don't understand have difficult it was to get a receipt in a tiny village in Russia in the first place. Such is life, it's the job I do and it doesn't look like it will change any time soon.

Worked for one company about 10 years back that gave us £50 per night dinner bed and breakfast. Lunch wasn't included for full days on site. At this point a travel inn cost more. My weekly expenses were more than I earned and had to be signed off by a director and only paid by cheque as otherwise it would cost them money.

They also had a fixed start and end time I got a dressing down for being late in despite not getting home till 10pm one night.

When I worked for Royal Mail many years ago we got fixed £45 per night subby no receipts. A mate was on a training course for 6 weeks and camped at £1 per night.

My employers have cut everyone hours from ridiculous to minimal.

I was doing 60+hours a week, which was good but from 1st of jan i am struggling to get more than 25, only thing is they only do 20 hour contracts.

They say it is to make people more flexible, but they have recruted another 10 staff members, and the rest of us are looking at second jobs meaning were actuly less flexable.

They are also trying to tell us we arn't aloud a second job. But to hell with that

I work in Vancouver but regularly fly to the US on business. One time I happened to be flying back from somewhere like Houston on a Friday evening and the CFO could only find flights for around $3000 but she had also found a flight to Seattle for about $800. So she asked me whether I wanted to stay in Seattle for the weekend and said my girlfriend could join me and she'd covered "the extra cost" (figuring she'd save over $2000).

So, I said yes. My girlfriend drove down from Vancouver (with border crossing, about a 4hr drive). We stayed in a nice hotel (though it was actually only about $139 per room per night), did a bit of sight-seeing and went shopping

Anyway, when I submitted my expenses claim, everything apart from the hotel costs for the two nights and my dinner expense for the Friday night was rejected. She even refused to refund the my girlfriend's petrol expenses [never mind pay a $/mile rate] or even pay for the car parking at the hotel.

Needless to say, I was furious and even more pissed off when she justified this by saying she HAD eventually found a cheaper flight back to Vancouver which would 'only' have cost her $1000.
(And it pisses me off even more when we simply bill our clients for the flight costs!!)

The CFO refuses to provide a policy on expenses - all seems to be done on a whim.
They also don't provide a company credit cards - I found out once that when they hired a car for me, they didn't insure it - mistakenly assuming I would pay for it on my own credit card and therefore be covered on my credit card insurance...

Our lot are pretty good. I usually drive pool cars about for field visits, but on a recent trip I took my own as we were making a weekend of it. Slightly embarrassing claiming the mileage when it comes to not far off a weeks wage 😯

It seems we get reimbursed well for driving down here

Three week phone bill accounted to £350, I was told we get a £5 expense a day for calling home, not so much when you look at the cost of mobile to mobile calls from the US! Any way, long story short, I had to foot part of the bill to get the expenses claimed after much back and forth via email. The cost wasted with me messing about far surpassed that the company saved.

To be fair if I called my wife each night and still do so from abroad knowing it costs a fortune I'd consider myself to have a problem!

When I was away with work abroad you got nothing but your food allowance and basic board costs, you want to phone home you do it on your own wallet. You want to get a taxi into town for a beer, go for it, but don't charge the business. I don't think that's unfair, anything more is a perk, not a right. Things like phonecalls home are personal expenses - why should joe get an extra £5 a day to call home if jim doesn't have a family to call, can he save it up and blow it on hookers instead?

Cry me a river. Until recently I worked P/T for the local council. Drinking water had to be brought from home unless you fancied drinking from the tap in the cleaning cupboard where the toilet mops were rinsed out...

There was also a sink in the staff room but it only ran hot water. And then they found Legionnaires Disease in the pipes.

^^^ Sunderland City Council, Silksworth dry ski slope by the way. I'm not scared.

It's it much better near the top of the tree any more ! I had a domestic flight refused as it was to go and try and seal a deal. This was on the back of about 10 other petty things. So I didn't go and we lost circa 250k of work. The client is a friend of mine and he rather thoughtfully wrote me an email explaining that because I didn't turn u in person they were concerned that we would not give them the attention they needed. I sent it to my CEO with the email chain from finance refusing the flight etc etc. it was the tipping point for him I think, things have massively change daily because I wrote the new expenses policy ! Every month I get sent bills for $3-$10 dollars for phon expenses, it costs me more in time to answer the blooming emails. Pathetic

a very large telecoms company simalar to vt. say no more

Worked for one company about 10 years back that gave us £50 per night dinner bed and breakfast. Lunch wasn't included for full days on site. At this point a travel inn cost more. My weekly expenses were more than I earned and had to be signed off by a director and only paid by cheque as otherwise it would cost them money.

They also had a fixed start and end time I got a dressing down for being late in despite not getting home till 10pm one night.

Sounds like the place I used to work, up to £35 a night including food which had to be receipted and accounted for, except there was no limit on where you could stay. People would drive 50 miles each way to save £10 as you wouldn't be allowed to spend the extra and stay closer...

I had an expenses claim refused as I bought an SD card reader, total cost about a tenner. I had already bought one 12 months earlier but was having trouble with it so bought another. Nobody informed me, they just deducted the cost from the overall claim and I had to justify the cost to one of the directors before it would be paid.

I'm just embarrassed by our new company video, you would need four hands to count the number of times they save 'innovative' when in actual fact our philosophy always seems to be 'last minute, and as cheap as possible'.

They're pretty generous with expenses though, even talking about subsidising my Canadian residency application 8)

When I was away with work abroad you got nothing but your food allowance and basic board costs, you want to phone home you do it on your own wallet. You want to get a taxi into town for a beer, go for it, but don't charge the business. I don't think that's unfair, anything more is a perk, not a right. Things like phonecalls home are personal expenses - why should joe get an extra £5 a day to call home if jim doesn't have a family to call, can he save it up and blow it on hookers instead?

Ok then. I assume you were being paid for all the hours you were away from home if you had that view. Otherwise, frankly you're a mug and your employers were shafting you. If I'm travelling away from my home and family, working much longer hours than normal, then they either make it more palatable or I don't go. I never understand people who don't count all the 'free' hours they give their employer when travelling for work

Succinctly, joe should get money from work to call home because work means he isn't at home. If he was, he wouldn't need to pay for the phone call

Hours away is just balls part of the job really.
In the modern world there are enough ways to call home for free on the internet.

More recently though had a boss who travelled every week so he could play football.

I've got it easy at my place. We can happily book Hilton hotels, first class train, fly, 25 quid for dinner. As long as your line manager approves it, it's approved.corporate amex makes it hassle free too

it's approved.corporate amex makes it hassle free too

Corporate Amex used to be a way of stopping people spending as nowhere ever took it 🙂

Zokes agree

Ck not the whole world has internet.

We are entitled to 10 minutes every other night calling

No one complains as long as you dont take the piss. althought after acertain value your line manager gets asked to make you justify it . Its 200 quid a month as i found out after a long phone call due to family berevement

Reasonable taxis and fuel are accepted but any alcohol is not allowed on expenses

I'm glad to say I work for a very large German outfit, and none of the bad stuff above is familiar. I used to work for a fairly large US outfit, and ALL of the bad stuff above is familiar!

So you can imagine how please I was when I was asked to get him to repay £3 from his credit card expenses for Express boarding with Ryanair....

I was once asked to tell someone that 65p would be deducted from their next payroll as their hotel bill included a newspaper (not permitted in the expenses policy), had been paid and then spotted in an audit. I immediately placed the 65p on the Finance Directors desk and told him I would remind my team of the expenses policy. I also suggested that if he was ever so petty again I would be asking my team to make sure that every single penny they could claim they did claim (most people didn't claim for cups of coffee during the day etc. which the policy permitted). My team must have been very diligent after that as there were never any more complaints from finance ;-).

Then I get pulled up for authorising a line manager to get his team a bottle of wine each for Xmas as a thank you and I have to repay £30 for the biscuits etc I bought for the office.

[i]Succinctly, joe should get money from work to call home because work means he isn't at home. If he was, he wouldn't need to pay for the phone call [/i]

+1

Many years ago I worked pretty much every week-night away, could be just UK but mostly Europe and further afield. My Manager was always complaining about the cost of my expenses - it was obviously high because I was always away...

I manage to justify a mobile phone when the original GSM service (1993 I think) came in, as my 'allowed' 10 minute phone home per day worked out at about £30-50 per night in most abroad hotels, whereas using the GSM was £5.

The company policy on hotels/dinner etc was receipt value (but alcohol was limited to 1/2 bottle of wine or 2 pints - irrelevent of cost). But the policy depended on which country you were based in, as the Germans' got a per diem (value dependent on location of the expense).

Oh, and different grades got different rates throughout the business - which use to boil my pi55 somewhat.

I do though beleive that folk who are on regular business travel should have a more generous policy than those who tavel once/twice a year - there are only so many cheap hotels you can stay in, night after night.

Reasonable taxis and fuel are accepted but any alcohol is not allowed on expenses

The company policy on hotels/dinner etc was receipt value (but alcohol was limited to 1/2 bottle of wine or 2 pints - irrelevent of cost)

i do always remember finding the places that did a receipt that said "Meals"

I work for "Rubbish Tractor Production Facility Number 1", about 6 years ago I was sent on a course to France to learn about the new radio's they were installing. This meant I had to pay the hotel bill (£300+) on my card and claim it back. So I put in the expenses and being the crap non profit making organization they are it takes 4 weeks to process.

After 4 weeks no expenses paid. I phone up to be told it's due to the £6 a day old T's & C's (which I am entitled too) out of country living expenses I'd also put in for not being recognised by the system. So rather than just not pay me the £18 this amounted too they failed to pay the whole lot. No phone call or email to say there was a problem either. It took another 8 weeks to sort out. Did they pay my CC interest? *unts!

So for want of a nail......

For the stuff like phone calls my take on it tends to be that I knew what my job would involve when I took it, and I get well paid for it so it's more hassle than it's worth to faff around trying to squeeze every penny I'm entitled to out of expenses. However, the flip side is that if they start being picky about the stuff I [b]do[/b] claim for I might start checking exactly what I could claim for but don't.

After reading this thread I'm so glad I'm self employed.

This reminds me of when I used to work for a large IT company. They sent us down for a two-week training thing, at their own training centre - except that the training centre made us pay our own accommodation bills which we were then meant to reclaim. Of course the bills were higher than the per-night rate we were allowed to claim on expenses, so the company ended up charging us £5 per night.

Later, because they didn't have someone able to train me in the job I was meant to be doing, they opened an unlimited account for me on the in-house publication ordering system, and told me to order any learning materials I thought I might need. Still got a basement full of £500 manuals.

I too am now very glad I work for myself - even though all expenses must be approved by 'er indoors 🙂

ahwiles - Member

That moment when your employer boss asks you who you are is just plain embarrassing...

When I joined my previous employer, the CEO asked me if I knew who [i]he[/i] was.

I said no, I didn't.

He's dead, currently... Ho hum. So it goes.

My employer used to sound like the OP's but you would face investigation and possible disciplinary rather than just sorting it out.

I got queried about one of my expenses once. We had a £30 per day limit. I submitted receipts for a £4.99 burger and a £25 bottle of wine. The FD approved it and said it showed a geed sense of priorities. I got loads of cheeky claims through after that

It always amuses me when Tory MPs go on about how much more efficient the private sector is, they have no idea - all organisations just disappear up their own arses in stupid bureaucracy and incompetent management once they get above a certain size.

I did some work at a festival once, theoretically on expenses, but only things that there were receipts for. (try getting receipts from some random hippy running a falafel stall at 11pm) and complicated rules on what time of day breakfast lunch and dinner can be claimed, which when you're working midday - 1 am days all go to pot. Hmph.