Would delayed expense approvals leave anyone else struggling month to month

[OneAmberBee]

I have to travel in my job, thankfully less than I used to, but my role covers Wales and Scotland and parts of England. My boss is very chilled he doesn't micromanage at all which is great, but it largely means all the people in the team work independently with little input.

When you do need him, his knowledge is excellent and so that makes a difference, but his admin skills and processing things in a timely fashion is extremely poor. This is where I am getting incredibly frustrated, because I spend money to travel and of course claim it back, but it has to go to my manager for approval and of course he takes weeks to approve it, on one occasion almost two months.

That is bad enough, but I am a single income household and whilst my income is pretty good, I have a mortgage, bills etc to pay and although I always get through the month and don't use my overdraft, I am literally scraping by the last few days before I get paid. Last month I had the princely sum of £1.12 in my bank account the day before payday. I do have some savings, so it's not all bleak but they are not easy to access immediately.

So whenever I submit expenses, I send my manager an email then a week later send a follow up, then a Teams Call (he never answers) and eventually resort to texting his personal mobile. In some ways it affects my esteem because I feel I am begging to get my expenses back, which is obviously my money in the first place. When I've pointed this out he always laughs and says he'll try harder and then never does.

What makes it worse is that the rest of my team are all married and seemingly monied. One is married to a judge, another to an eminent surgeon and so they are the 2nd earners. When we have team meetings away I sit listening to them all talking about their 2nd homes and their latest car/exotic holiday and I'm sitting there wondering how I'll pay for the expenses incurred through travelling to the meeting listening to colleagues discuss their ever growing bank balance.

I just don't think it would ever cross their minds that my income is the only income I have and it's finite and doesn't stretch immeasurably across the month. It's beginning to get me down and I don't know if it's just because my boss is so lax at approving my expenses which means I have to budget harder or whether it's really the tip of the iceberg because ultimately I'm pissed off that everybody else seems to be breezing through life without a money worry and I have to carefully plan.

Don't get my wrong I could be in a much worse position and I do get by, but it's only just and when I'm relying on sometimes as much as £250 of expenses coming back to me and they don't arrive when I need them, it really gets me down.

Am I being a whinge-bag or would you feel frustrated too?

You need a system where your boss pays upfront or you just don’t travel; you could ask for advice from ACAS if you’re not in a trade union.

Could you suggest corporate credit cards are issued, or is that a definite no?

Do you currently pay on a personal credit card, or on your debit card - a CC would give you some breathing space before being paid off, and if there are penalties for not being able to pay in time, you could recharge back (but this isn't a great solution as impacts your personal credit rating if you default).

Can anyone else authorise your expenses (finance team perhaps)?

My place only pay's expenses once a month and we have a terrible time chasing managers asking them to approve ahead of the deadline. It is not fair leaving employees out of pocket. Please have a conversation with him and explain the impact not approving your expenses if having as this may encourage him to do better. If you are brave enough explain unless the company covers some of the costs up front, then you won't be able to continue travelling the way you do.

It would depend on the value. I do have an accessible ‘rainy day’ space within my current account so for me the £250 you mention could quite easily come/go from there. But that is kind of irrelevant, it doesn’t work for you and I think you need to be honest with your boss and say you rely on having it paid promptly.

It’s not unreasonable to expect work expenses to be repaid quickly. I usually get mine within 3 days of submission and while it wouldn’t be a hardship if they were late, I’d be pissed off waiting for weeks or months.

DH is a high earner, and we don't struggle.

But he sure as hell doesn't let work procrastinate when it comes to paying back expenses.

It isn't shameful to ask for your money back. And it is downright rude of them that you have to chase.

We give a float. Could you ask for this? Then any expenses you’re waiting for have in theory already been paid for by the company.
onestar do a good corporate credit card too, for employees.

Are you paying for travel etc from your current account or by credit card?

Wouldn't the easiest first step be to talk to your manager and say something like 'I have very little wriggle room financially and I do need to have my expenses paid back promptly to stay in credit each month. Could we agree that you sign them within say two days? What's the best way for me to let you know I have submitted them to you for you to sign?'

Any reasonable manager would want to do this for you, not least because your request is reasonable.

I claim about £350 of mileage each month, and as a single parent on a low income I definitely want them the month I’m owed them! I don’t know what solution there is for you, union and suggesting credit cards sound sensible options, but I wanted you to k ie you definitely aren’t just whinging.

Can you work on getting a couple of hundred as a cushion in this bank account as you know this regularly happens? Sell on vinted or to a local collectibles shop? Reduce subscriptions? Use lentils/beans/pulses/porridge more? It’s not right, but you’d feel less stressed I think.

It’s not fair to expect you to pay out of pocket.
Could they sign up with Inntel or similar if they don’t want to allow credit cards. Covers rail, hotels and flights. Hotels can include a meal allowance too.

less admin for your manager to approve on time and a monthly invoice comes through.
More importantly you aren’t left struggling.

Are you using expense software - if not that might push things on. I always paid the team expenses within 24 hours - asked them to hound me if I didn't, sometimes their expenses were in the thousands - mostly before covid. But a couple of flights and 4 night in a hotel with meals, taxis and trains really adds up.

Is the business large enough to book hotels & trains for you centrally, so you only need to claim back mileage? Is there an official expenses policy you can quote back to your manager? What about a formal cut off date each month?

Work expenses should be paid at end of week imo

there is no way I could afford to be out of pocket for that amount

if you have a credit card can you put on there and moment get paid , pay it so shouldn’t be any charges

My friend's job does this to her. She has to even pay out for hotels and stuff sometimes and they pay her back up to 3 months later. She's scared to say anything in case it is further used to prove that she isnt a "good fit".

Reason number 292746474 I am self employed.

Yeah I’d struggle, less so now I’m earning a bit more but when dd was younger (also a single parent) it would have been an issue.

I don’t think waiting for more than a month is acceptable.

my expenses are typically only £40-60 per month and I don’t ever get down to zero in my bank (now!)

• but I would still pull my boss up on it if they didn’t approve quickly.

I am slow to submit my expenses, but my boss is twice as slow to approve them. I have the equivalent of a cheap family holiday waiting to be returned to me at the moment. Which I can carry but I do want back as I want to be able to book a much needed holiday for January (after a massive project finishes) before those costs rise.

You either need a float, or a credit card (worth having a look for one that provides some benefit to you like cash back or loyalty points).
if you use the credit card, you then at least have a month to pay it off

This. It is totally unacceptable for expenses to take that long whether or not it causes you financial hardship.

Lots of suggestions on this thread as to how the system can be improved, I would push for changes to be made in line what would work in your workplace and not let it drop as it could well be more than you it causes difficulties for.

When I had no money years ago there were times I couldn't buy food, pay bills or buy fuel until my expenses were paid and I made sure they knew about the problems their tardy system was causing.

I have a 0% credit card (personal, not through work) that I only use for work so it's always separate from family money and I don't use it for anything else.

Is there a company policy for expenses? If your manager breaches the policy regularly, maybe you could lodge a grievance?

We use a pre paid “Equals” credit card for our staff members , easily monitored by us & we get updated when credit is getting low. Our staff couldn’t afford the outlay themselves . Until recently it was free but they have recently started a £25 monthly service charge even if we don’t use the cards. ( we are in a very random business which tends to be “all or nothing” expenses wise.

I am newly retired, but when I worked, I was in your colleague's position; however, maybe I was more aware or a nicer person, and whilst I may have mentioned my holiday in passing, I certainly never went on about my life.

The majority, if not all, of my colleagues were not in my financial position, either because they were much younger or because they were the main/only breadwinner for the household. The expectation from the management was for staff to finance their own expenses, pay for/join in on nights out and to travel into the office every day, even though the job could be done on a hybrid basis.

I spent a considerable amount of time trying to make the management team see sense or just act as reasonable employers. Expenses could only be submitted once a month and were then paid a further 2 weeks after. If there was anything that the accounts person couldn't understand, then the whole claim was pushed back and had to be submitted the following month. As the accounts person was particularly thick and lazy, this was a frequent occurrence. There was more than one occasion when I had to sub a colleague so they could eat.

OP, you are not alone. Especially now that everything is so expensive, it has to be the responsibility of employers to have better ways of ensuring that their employees can live on a day-to-day basis and that their business practices are not hampering this.

Before I retired, I compiled a report for the directors explaining how their practices were harming their reputation and that they would have a staff retention issue very soon. Recommendations not only included paying expenses weekly and assigning the task to someone more capable, but also reviewing the WFH policy, which was only available to managers, not general employees, yet the cost of fuel/fares was proportionally much higher for them. It was quite clear that their jobs could be done from home and that a hybrid model would work..

I use my Credit Card and then pay back what I can, recent car expenses means I'm close to my credit limit on the card.