Can an employer "fine" you for late admin?

Apparently the US parent company of my UK employer wants me to pay a “late payment charge” as I did not complete an expense report in their allotted time, so they could process the charges on my company credit card. Not a huge amount but about £15.

This was due to a number of reasons, lack of knowledge of the software, not being in the office, problems with the software when submitting the report and also procrastination on my part as the whole thing is a pain in the arse!

Not wanting to argue about the tardiness of my admin and yes I should of probably made more than an effort to get to grips with it but I was a bit busy actually working to do the admin.

Basic question, are they legally allowed in the UK, for all intents and purposes, to “fine” me?

pay it and put it on your expenses 😉

If its in the small print of your contract yes.

Possibly. We’ve had a similar debate and it centres on who the liability for the credit card is with. In the US, it’s often with the person, not the company but that’s less common in the UK.

If it is with you then you’re liable for that £15 fee but only I think if it’s a fee from the credit card company, not from your company.

I was a bit busy actually working to do the admin.

Everyone says that…

Too busy to do expenses?

The only paper work I can guarantee that is ever completed on time and 100% accurate is time sheets and expenses claims.

To answer your question if it results in added costs for the company then it may be in your Policies that they pass this cost onto you.

Some of my colleagues are screaming out for company credit cards – but until they do their expenses accurately and on time, they have no chance (as the company ends up with the debt, not the person)

any company that thinks it’s going to be cost effective as an organisation in one country, to have someone administer getting the money from your organisation to theirs, having administered getting it from you, needs to really have a word with themselves. 15 quid FFS. 🙄

I was a bit busy actually working to do the admin.

Everyone says that…[/quote]

That would be because it’s true.

That would be because it’s true.

Absolutely Zokes.

Clubber are you an administrator?

No… 😉

And you can guarantee that people would manage to get it done if it was their own liability. Which incidentally seems to be what they’re trying to do…

xiphon – Member
Some of my colleagues are screaming out for company credit cards

I’m in that boat at the moment. I’m claiming more than I earn a month in expenses, so basically I’m loaning my work my salary, interest-free, until they get around to paying me.

The one plus side is that I earn an absolute bucketload of Avios from the credit card though.

A lot depends on the wording of your contract and the expenses policy.

IF the charge is a late payment fee from the card company charged because you were late in making the submission then it is perfectly legal for the company to ask you to pay these charges. This is due to the fact that they could not pay the card because they didnt have the details and therefore will class it as personal expenditure.

If it is a charge that THEY are making yourself but not charged to them by the card company then it will depend on your contract wording.

IN short if the company has incurred extra costs due to your non submission then they are perfectly within their rights to pass those costs and a reasonable administration charge onto yourself.

zokes – Member

I was a bit busy actually working to do the admin.

Everyone says that…[/quote]
That would be because it’s true.[/quote]
Says everybody….
If you were docked £15 for not doing it then it would get done 🙂

This was due to a number of reasons, lack of knowledge of the software, not being in the office, problems with the software when submitting the report and also procrastination on my part as the whole thing is a pain in the arse!

Ah the real reason for not doing stuff…

one company I worked for ‘sort of’ did, your bonus payment was reduced by 25% (I think) if you didn’t:
– do all timesheets properly by due date
– keep phone etc nos up to date on internal system
– do your appraisal

towzer – you worked for schlumberger ?

If you were docked £15 for not doing it then it would get done

Thankfully, we have a good union 🙂

We actually stopped doing admin (organisation of 6000 staff) for about four months when Enterprise Bargaining failed three years ago. The organisation coped just fine.

By and large, admin is just a means for managers to freeload off their staff, because they hope the staff will just do it in that magical extra time that they have on top of already doing a full time job. If they actually paid enough admin staff to do all the admin, they’d realise the full cost of it to the organisation and stop a lot of the nonsense PDQ.

If I don’t do admin, nothing happens, the world doesn’t end, and we still live happily ever after. If I don’t do my real job, we end up with unhappy clients who don’t pay us. Hardly a surprise to see what should be my main priority.