Unreasonable Employer - Expenses

[Sheepshanks]

lemonslap said:

Different industry's I guess makes the difference, I have worked for very large and small electrical manufactures for the past 10 years and have always self funded.

Well, not far away - mine are electronics.

[Sheepshanks]

Alfa numeric said:

The Moose said:

elanfan said:

Rot. Most companies make a percentage at the front end where they charge 3/4% of the transaction cost.

Most merchants aren't paying 3/4% to accept credit cards...

They are if they accept AMEX. When I worked in the industry most cards attracted a 1-2% charge.

..and corporate debit cards are in the 3-4% range. Some places won't take them if they realise, as the charge for personal debit cards is very small.

[TLandCruiser]

When I had a company credit card, I was also given a £250 cash float. I just used the card/cash and put in the receipt. They even let me use it for private use and would deduct it from my wages which came in handy as I traveled around the world so would use that to prevent me being at risk from card cloning etc

[Sir Fergie]

BJG1 said:

You don't need to be saving £1,000 a month - you just need to have £1,000

Yes that's true

[toohuge]

OP, I feel your pain. It is a sticky situation to be in and I am surprised the company is being so difficult.

Please, please, please take into consideration that if you are abroad then most cards charge a foreign transaction fee, so try and find one that does not charge this, or see if the employer will reimburse this.

We had a sticky situation whereby our credit cards changed their policies on foreign transaction fees whilst we were away on business.

Suffice to say that on annual expenses of over 120k USD, these soon added up. There were times at conferences etc. when we were having to pay for the room of other employers as their limits would not cover the bill.

Mind you, we had reward cards so we did rack up a huge amount of points, that are pretty useless, but that's life

I don't like companies relying on their employees for cheap credit, it's not right in my opinion. Whilst you should be thankful for the job etc. if the company needs you somewhere and puts you out of options, then the least they can do is accept the costs upfront.

Chris

[The Moose]

Alfa numeric said:

The Moose said:

elanfan said:

Rot. Most companies make a percentage at the front end where they charge 3/4% of the transaction cost.

Most merchants aren't paying 3/4% to accept credit cards...

They are if they accept AMEX. When I worked in the industry most cards attracted a 1-2% charge.

AMEX are not necessarily 3/4% for all merchants...

[0a]

Op if you are not getting anywhere with HR see your line manager. The company I work for had no mechanism when I joined aside relying on staff to reclaim expenses, which when some of the staff are £20k junior staff members is completely unacceptable and I fully sympathise with - business away from the office should not rely on the employee's personal finances for a loan and should not cause employees stress (which may encourage them not to go or to "underspend" - I.e get a hotel miles away, travel by train rather than fly and so on).

If they want to trust you to be out of the office then they need to trust you with a sensible payment process - go and see your line manager and explain it is causing worries and issues and let him/her fight to get things changed.

[Crafty_]

As others have said its not on really.

I've got a corporate AMEX, no idea of the limit, I can put anything on it but if the expenses report is not submitted for an item it will come from my pay. In some ways this is good, I can go abroad, take their card and use it for personal stuff and just submit it to be paid from my pay.

I do an online expenses report, that goes to a clearing centre in Spain (I think), locally I give a print out of the report & receipts to the admin, who (as far as I'm aware) manually check it against the system. Thats it. In fact I can nominate people who can book travel etc for me on to my card.

I can't imagine the cost to the business of doing all of the expenses and submitting the payments and dealing with any exceptions/re-checks every month.
Maybe they should look in to a managed service for accommodation/travel ? i.e. you book what you need through the third party (which has some sort of authentication procedure), you personally pay nothing and the third party bill your company once a month for the costs incurred. I'd be amazed if a service like that doesn't exist.

OP have you spoken with colleagues about this, maybe if you approach management en masse (in a non aggressive way) and maybe even find a service similar to what I've suggested above as a solution to the issue management might start taking it seriously ?

[PorkInsider]

It's very common for employees to end up footing their own expenses initially, in my experience.

Until 3 years ago I worked for a huge US corporation (well over 50,000 staff). We had company credit cards but they were to all intents and purposes personal cards as they were paid from our personal bank accounts, which the company would credit 3 days before the payment due date.

If you screwed up your expense claim in any way, you'd have the bill debited from your bank anyway, then be waiting for next month to get it paid back.

The next employer (via takeover and again huge) didn't issue company cards at all. The idea was to get a travel administrator to book flights and hotels and then we would just pick up smaller expenses. In reality I would stump up £3k+ most months and just claim it back.

[skeggysteve]

I work, via an agency, for a reasonably large company.

If I worked for the company I would get a company credit card but as I work via an agency I don't.

I have never had a problem getting my expenses re-paid but on a couple of occasions I have said I can't afford to pay that expense and the company has found a way to pay it for me - company credit card holder paying or the company paying it directly.

My point is that if the company want you to do the job they will find a way to help you.
Hope you get it sorted out.

[bga]

Highway Star said:

Many do, and increasingly so IME. I can only guess that there are some cost implications on company credit card/AMEX schemes that companies are looking to avoid by putting the burden on the employee.

We pay approx £50 per person per year for corporate Amex facility.

For years we expected people to pay & then claim for expenses but as we started employing more junior people and people who just moved to the UK then we needed another option.

[dancole90]

great to get so many responses, and to hear from a few of you that i'm not the only one!

My line manager is about as as useful as a third nipple when it comes to employee issues like this, his actual response one time was 'don't stop away then, just travel each day'... yeah alright then.
So I've emailed HR explaining that it's unreasonable to expect employees to fork out half their wage every month to be able to even go to do their job properly.

Still awaiting a response.

[Sheepshanks]

dancole90 said:

So I've emailed HR explaining that it's unreasonable to expect employees to fork out half their wage every month to be able to even go to do their job properly.

If you want to stay there I wouldn't be too arsy about it - just tell them that you're struggling and it's causing you financial hardship.

[dancole90]

Sheepshanks said:

If you want to stay there I wouldn't be too arsy about it - just tell them that you're struggling and it's causing you financial hardship.

The email was in the most polite way I could put it.

I explained there was no way I can manage it and explained why.
Said how i'd requested a cash float on several occasions but i was told it wasn't company policy by my manager son thought HR were the best people to speak to and asked if there is any other way we can resolve the issue together as I enjoyed my job and enjoyed being a part of a successful market leader blah blah. Mentioned the only reason I was raising the issue wasn't to be awkward but I was slowly creating financial problems for myself by not having fund to pay my own living expenses... the reason I work in the first place.


Just had a response from HR with a sarky comment about how no one else seems to struggle. But they have forwarded my concerns onto the HR manager who will review my case and be in touch.

[Eric Mc]

Whether others struggle or not is completely irrelevant and is indicative of a dismissive and arrogant attitude by your employer (or at least their HR department).

To be honest, no matter how "enjoyable" the job might be - the attitude of your employer's would have me looking elsewhere.

[dancole90]

Eric Mc said:

Whether others struggle or not is completely irrelevant and is indicative of a dismissive and arrogant attitude by your employer (or at least their HR department).

To be honest, no matter how "enjoyable" the job might be - the attitude of your employer's would have me looking elsewhere.

I have been, all dry at the moment. Most places I applied wanted apprentices or highly experienced engineers. I'm inbetween. My company pays very very well compared to others so without loosing a huge chunk of income which may not go onto expenses but still would cause me to struggle, I'm stuck.

I was honestly shocked at her reply, HR have been very helpful in the past and very flexible.

[pikeyboy]

I had a similar thing with my current employer. I jumped up and down until they gave me a company card. I don't see why we should be lending money interest free to our employers. They also don't like it when you pass on the charges you incur on your own cards for exchange rates etc to them either

[Eric Mc]

dancole90 said:

I have been, all dry at the moment. Most places I applied wanted apprentices or highly experienced engineers. I'm inbetween. My company pays very very well compared to others so without loosing a huge chunk of income which may not go onto expenses but still would cause me to struggle, I'm stuck.

I was honestly shocked at her reply, HR have been very helpful in the past and very flexible.

At the end of the day, you have to decide whether you can put up with this type of treatment. Do the benefits outweigh the inconvenience - and genuine risks, in this case?

If they do, then by all means stay.
If they don't, keep looking elsewhere.

[Sir Fergie]

Eric Mc said:

Whether others struggle or not is completely irrelevant and is indicative of a dismissive and arrogant attitude by your employer (or at least their HR department).

To be honest, no matter how "enjoyable" the job might be - the attitude of your employer's would have me looking elsewhere.

I think the issue is particularly well illustrated if you look at it over 12 months - 1000 pounds might sound problem free to some in a company - but if you think of it in terms of 12,000 pounds - the case for it been unreasonable.

Especially if you think that 12 k would pay a lot of bills, buy you a decent car - and pay for a few weekends away.

This sort of thing - may be the norm in many places - but that doesn't make it the right way to treat staff.

Wages are MEANT to be there to pay YOU for work you have done - not to fund your work expenses for the next month.

Its obviously easy to say budget for the bills and work expenses - so you can pay your bills as your expenses come in or get them paid and incur work expenses at the same time.

But it should also be straightforward for the company to organise a better system for sorting out staff expenses - my take on it - is that they are going to be paying them eventually anyway - so why not see about issuing staff credit cards for incurring expenses away from the office - been a credit card - the company still gets the cashflow advantage of not paying straight away - but Staff aren't financially at a loss - its a win win situation all around.

Or work to improve turnaround times for expenses - especially if staff are having difficulties - would it REALLY be that difficult for OPs company to process his expenses as he incurs them - and pay them into the bank asap. Could do it for ALL staff - your going to be processing them anyway - and if the staff are helping you out (as a company) by paying out of their own pocket - surely the company should make payment of said expenses as fuss free as possible.

OP isn't the first person to be tight financially - and if his difficulties in paying bills are down to he incurring expenses for work - then there should be procedures put in place to deal with this.

I think its a case sadly of the people who make these decisions not been the people who are incurring the expenses

[PorkInsider]

Sir Fergie said:

I think the issue is particularly well illustrated if you look at it over 12 months - 1000 pounds might sound problem free to some in a company - but if you think of it in terms of 12,000 pounds - the case for it been unreasonable.

Especially if you think that 12 k would pay a lot of bills, buy you a decent car - and pay for a few weekends away.

This sort of thing - may be the norm in many places - but that doesn't make it the right way to treat staff.

Why would you think of it in terms of anything other than £1,000?

£12,000 never comes into the equation.

You run up expenses of £1,000
You get it refunded
You run up expenses of £1,000
You get it refunded
And so on...

£1,000 is all that is needed to support that; it's not an incremental increase of £1,000 each month.

(Not that this makes it right for the employer to expect the free credit.)