To be pissed off WRT reclaiming expenses from work?

[EricNorthmansMistress]

We do lots of client face to face stuff involving buying coffees etc. Occasionally we go out for lunches, or buy items that are needed. The money is always reimbursed as soon as you hand in a signed slip and receipt.

Manager is trying to reduce cash coming into/out of team. They have got hold of a team credit card, argos card, and are suggesting that we request BACS payments for any expenses we incur over £15. These take 4-7 days.

We already pay our own petrol (no car user allowance) and have to wait til end of following month to get it back.

There is only one card, for team of 20+. They said we can do cash advances up to £15 with a signed slip, fine. However sometimes you will unavoidably have to spend over £15 without being able to plan for it. I don't think it should be a rule that £15 is the limit, ie there should be flexibility. This is because £15 or more is too much for my budget to lose for up to a week. The managers simply can't comprehend this. I have responded to a whole team email saying 'not to go on, but I really can't afford this rule' (paraphrasing) and just realised that both teams that our service manager manages were included, so I have told complete strangers that I am broke. I did raise this in team meeting last week so this was their response to my original request for flexibility (NO).

I'm pissed off and embarrassed and I think they are being VU indeed. The team works on goodwill and people being able to reclaim their own money when they need it.

AIBU?

Surely the obvious answer is to just get more cards linked to the team credit card (or enter into a corporate scheme where you all have your own card). Or can you take out a personal credit card that you just use for work stuff (what I did when I worked for a company where I had to claim everything back once a month).

I don't think it is unreasonable for the business not to give you cash up front. And on the basis that you already have the pay and claim back scheme for the petrol I don't think the company attitude that you do that for other expenses is that odd.

I'm not surprised they've replaced the former process. It must have been an absolute nightmare from a financial control point of view. You need to talk to your bosses about how much entertaining you do/ expenditure you incur and see if there are other ways of meeting these costs without you being out of pocket for too long.

You also need to separate out the embarassing email issue from the expenses issue. It's not your bosses fault that you emailed the wrong people.

I had a govt job once where every expense incurred was paid back the following month. We all did what redsky suggests, got personal credit cards and paid them off every month by DD the day after the reimbursement date. A bit of a bummer, but it worked.