To hate doing expenses?

[Robfordscrack]

Grr, takes so much time fannying around looking for all the receipts that I'm supposed to have kept but now are just scrunched up at the bottom of my handbag. plus how sheepish I feel when seeing the total amount even if it's for a business trip. there must be a better way surely?

I hate doing the receipts thing too. Now I have a bank account and credit card just for expenses. As I only use it for tax deductible things the accountant just gets a copy of the statement. It works really well.

www.shoeboxed.com

Biggest cause of domestic discord in this house. My scrunched up receipts, changes of handbag/ purse and the misplaced receipts this causes. DH forensic analysis of the accounts and calculations to the last p how much has been spent. Procrastination as I just know I have a wallet somewhere with loads of petrol receipts. Doing them finally when the overdraft can no longer be ignored. Not finding the wallet at all ( until the day after end of year accounts have been finally submitted), My final submission falling many many £s short of DH expectations. The argument that ensues when he says we can't have X or Y because I chose to 'subsidise' the company.
Sigh... I'm doing my expenses today. I am. I will. I won't pack up the laptop till I'm done. I will finish them today!

I have 2 a4 envelopes. One taped to the inside of the glove box of the car and one on the back of the door to my study. I try to put receipts in straight away so that I can't loose them!

YANBU. My company just introduced an online system that means I have to scan all the receipts, fill in forms and then do it all manually as well If I wasn't such a tightwad I wouldn't bother claiming for that £3.50 sandwich lunch. But I am... so I do...

I help DH with his. It takes forever. They are a dirty word in our house. I really wish some clever IT person could devise a simple system, they must cause misery for so many people and take up time that could usefully be spent doing something enjoyable.
What about a network that all hotels, restaurants, travel companies are linked into which automatically notifies your company via a number, like a credit card number, if a spend is a business expense. Doesn't seem like rocket science!

Me too, HATE doing them. There must be a circle of hell reserved for just this activity - and another one for filing.

I did my managers this week, a thick wedge of receipts was passed to me, in no order, some without dates on (taxi ones)! Luckily if you use the corporate card it gets on the system automatically, so you just have to type in what it was for. Still a pain in the arse though. My last manager was meticulous and sent me a spreadsheet each month with all his spends and mileage itemised .

My own are a shamble, fortunately I don't have to expense much!

I'd quite like to do it for a job, I'm quite good at it after all this time.
Getting paid for it would be the key thing!

Cogito, I used to use a similar system and loathed it. Enter all reciept information into online system (that mostly worked? ish?), scan reciepts individually, attach individual scans to each expense line, cross-reference against credit card statement (also scanned in), code expenses to appropriate business areas/products from a non-searchable list of several thousand, code the type of expense and give acceptable reasons of not less than 140 characters. Let us not even mention the wailing and gnashing of teeth if I dared tip an American waitress.
Any foreign expenditure had to be entered twice, in the original currency and in £ to account for exchange rate variances between the bank rate and the company peg rate. I could spend 3 months a year travelling overseas for work and would lose days at a time getting it all to match up, when I could have been doing far more profitable work. The whole system was built in-house to a design specced up by a committee of people who were desperate to look busy rather than do anything useful.

It irritated me so much that I was determined to claim for every single bottle of water and packet of crisps. Doing similar quantities of expenses at other jobs, I'd get it all done far faster and with far less irritation and so not bother claiming for every little thing.

YY to the currency transactions. It has to be the same system. Designed by sadists ...

Some employers allow you to take a photograph on your iPhone and submit them directly to the finance dept as an attachment to an email. This means you don't have to save and submit the receipt each time.

It has crossed my mind that if the system was too efficient it would cost employers more money as more would be claimed.

Me too Cogito and Kerosene. Drives me batshit, and then it gets reviewed by accounts and they tell you you can't claim for the chocolate which along with a coffee was your dinner on the plane..

I think half the time I can't even claim because the receipt is somewhere scrunched up. I also feel too embarrassed to claim for Burger King I had in the airport when I was delayed and the exact breakdown of all the food I consume.

Expenses systems are detailed for a reason, sorry ladies!

Businesses have to prevent internal fraud, but more importantly they need to assure HMRC that their governance is strong and that they can segregate taxable and non-taxable items.

Helzapoppin, the IT system you have outlined, which would transmit data directly to the myriad different employers' expenses systems, would cost hundreds of millions and would take years to implement. It's not far off rocket science...the thought of all the interfaces that would have to be built! Don't think anybody us going to invest that to save disgruntled expenses claimants a few minutes!

My accountant can get extremely forensic about receipts and so on.

I know it's important and helps with the tax bill and all that but I agree OP, it can become an obsession sometimes.

YANBU - I also hate doing my VAT return

Offler I like the sound of the corporate card integrating with the accounts (presumably) system automagically. Which bank and which system?

I don't exactly hate but some times feel tired of managing the expenses and help get the expenses to be tracked and managed up specifically. For that particular specific reason, the tool that I have been using is the cloud based expense reporting software from Replicon ( www.replicon.com/olp/expense-reports.aspx ) which manage the things in a specific and strategic fashion.

DH's last expenses claim was for over £5000 whereas mine has parking tickets for £4.40 on it I haven't done mine since the end of october even though I've been sent a special spreadsheet to fill in. Another thing floating around in my head that I'm supposed to be doing.

Hate them! I end up doing three months worth at once and not being able to remember stuff. But getting the money is so good.
DP is worse than me though, works a year behind and does loads of foreigns. He leaves scrunched up receipts around the house. He can't cope when he finally sits down to do them!

Most card companies offer an integrated service, but only to larger companies. It is free and can offer cashback to the company because the card company makes money on fees - this is why amex is a popular corporate card as it offers the best cashback. also its higher charges are the reason it is not accepted all over the uk

Have finally finished mine but not before I had the lost-a-whole-pile-of-receipts panic. I always feel bad for expensing small stuff so I don't. guess I'm just not used to it.

Yeah our Amex links with our expense system. Still a pain to do! And it's still easier to pay for 4 nights dinner while away on personal card and put thru the system as one out of pocket expense (with a comment in the comment box saying 4 meals) than fill out 4 separate entires on the Amex.