Keeping tickets for expenses claims etc

[Weary Walker]

Oh well I based mine on what the finance pages read and my employers say. Luckily I don't have to claim very often. However my employer has made it quite clear that receipts are not acceptable.

 

[Failed Unit]

Oh well I based mine on what the finance pages read and my employers say. Luckily I don't have to claim very often. However my employer has made it quite clear that receipts are not acceptable.

I know others that do as well but it is a major lack of trust. Put what is the employer gaining? Take a tube ticket IIRC only has the station you bought it from and the price, having an oyster and leaving the capital it has being a while ago. Likewise if you book online surely the paper is as good as the ticket itself.

If a return from London - Leeds cost £100 standard return, why does it really matter if someone claimed a £60 AP return. In fact in some respects it is worse as it is not unknown for the standard to cost more than the first. In this situation I did have an employer refuse to buy the cheaper first preceding to buy the standard and pay for a meal (it was with Virgin)

Old timer sums it up - massive lack of trust of the employee. If people were buying open first they would soon spot it!

 

[Weary Walker]

Is it a fear of not being able to satisfy auditors/HMRC that the employee did not get a tax free bonus?

 

[Failed Unit]

Is it a fear of not being able to satisfy auditors/HMRC that the employee did not get a tax free bonus?

I will stick with lack of trust. Can't see how it can ever be considered as a bonus otherwise why isn't petrol considered as a bonus? If I drive from Glasgow - Manchester no-one asks me to buy petrol in Manchester to prove I went there by car.

 

[penaltyfines]

They may remain property of the railway, but quite what they could do at the time if you refused to hand it over is another matter...

 

[First class]

They may remain property of the railway, but quite what they could do at the time if you refused to hand it over is another matter...

Theft Act?

Intent to permanently deprive the rightful owner of their property.

Don't think it would ever get that far.

 

[OwlMan]

My employers pay the value of an SOR or FOR (depending on position in company) and let you travel how you want. I make a fortune on expenses as I am entitled to FOR but travel standard class using advances and cheap split tickets etc.

Peter

 

[ralphchadkirk]

They may remain property of the railway, but quite what they could do at the time if you refused to hand it over is another matter...

They can prosecute you.

 

[Deerfold]

My employers pay the value of an SOR or FOR (depending on position in company) and let you travel how you want. I make a fortune on expenses as I am entitled to FOR but travel standard class using advances and cheap split tickets etc.

Peter

Do you pay tax on the difference? If not your company is probably breaking the law.

 

[OwlMan]

Do you pay tax on the difference? If not your company is probably breaking the law.

They are French

 

[stut]

They are French

And that's the problem. You can talk as much as you like about HMRC regulations and UK accounting principles but if your company is based abroad, has a foreign parent company, or has a customer that is either of the above (so, basically, most of the private sector these days) then there are many more factors in play.

If your parent company or customer has any presence in the US, too, they'll have to abide by the incredibly strict Sarbanes-Oxley legislation, too. Multinationals will have to abide by multiple legal systems so will, typically, pick a strict set of rules that will abide by them all.

Not only that, but if your expense is incurred in the course of customer project work, then it's the contract or service agreement that sets the terms of what's required, on top of any legislation. And, in my industry, I've yet to see a customer that doesn't want proof of travel. I've even had one that wouldn't accept travel tickets (on whatever form) unless there was some kind of evidence it had been used (having had problems in the past with fraud where suppliers were buying expensive tickets, scanning them, expensing them, and then getting them refunded).

If you're an employee, the travel policy will clearly state what you need to do to in order to be properly reimbursed. In the case where a ticket is withdrawn, chances are that the company will absorb the cost (and not be able to recover it from the client). This may not matter to you if you work for a larger company, but believe me, these things matter to SMEs (especially when it's easy to directly see your impact on the company's finances - both positive and negative). Independent contractors (like me) take a bigger hit still. As for union reps, well, that's find if you work in an industry that has union recognition. I never have.

It might seem like a lack of trust, but in reality (as we've seen with the whole debacle in parliament), expenses are ripe for fraud. A small company can be sunk by fraud like this, particularly when it has to deal with multiple legislations (I've worked on projects that have spanned 15 countries simultaneously) and has a whole raft of suppliers for specialist activity.

An awful lot of business works like this, these days (personally, I dislike doing business entirely within the UK now, but that's a whole different discussion). The whole notion of "oh, a slip of paper with an amount of money on is fine, HMRC says so" is horribly outdated.

(The alternative, of course, is to use a corporate travel agent for all rail travel. Some companies do this, and it's almost never desirable for the employee. They are given strict policies to work to, and you'll suddenly find yourself arriving in town 3h early, and leaving 4h late, because the trains were £5 cheaper. The most ridiculous example was a friend who had to have his train back from Gatwick to Kingston booked through a corp TA. Because he qualified for 1st class rail travel, the TA booked him to Surbiton instead (no 1st class to Kingston) and arranged a taxi to take him the last few miles.)

However, as I've said, in practice, it's never been an issue for me, in over a decade of weekly business travel. Were it to become an issue, I imagine there'd be several companies kicking up a fuss...

Smartcards would simplify things, provided you could get an online statement - the OV-Chipkaart system in the Netherlands works well for this.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Could these companies not get a warrant account with the railway? I realise in some cases it may not be possible or viable, but this would help provide proof of costs and journeys taken and tickets can only be refunded to the warrant account.

 

[stut]

Could these companies not get a warrant account with the railway? I realise in some cases it may not be possible or viable, but this would help provide proof of costs and journeys taken and tickets can only be refunded to the warrant account.

The warrant account has a lot of downsides, though - it relies on you physically being in the office to get the warrant (and someone to administer it), and makes it more difficult to physically get the tickets, particularly Advance tickets, unless you have a staffed station near you.

It also introduces an often unacceptable delay to the expense claim - you have to wait for the statement to come in, submit with the next batch of expenses, and then wait for reimbursement from the client before it can be paid out to the employee. This cycle is longer than a credit card payment cycle, so, unless the employer has enough of a float to pre-reimburse travel payments (and many SMEs don't) then the employee can be severely out of pocket over a month or more.

Again, it's quite an outdated system - a much better system (as used by several airline and air travel providers) would be to have a secure-access online booking engine that would let you book tickets within a defined policy (or pending electronic authorisation).

...or indeed to use the current system, where you buy a ticket, keep it, and use it for an expense claim, which has yet to fail for me!

 

[Yew]

They may remain property of the railway, but quite what they could do at the time if you refused to hand it over is another matter...

Well you would say that you have to keep the ticket in case you are demanded to present it to a servant of the railways. until the (tthing that says you cant be prosecuted after a certain amout of time)

 

[Deerfold]

Well you would say that you have to keep the ticket in case you are demanded to present it to a servant of the railways. until the (tthing that says you cant be prosecuted after a certain amout of time)

I'm not keeping all my tickets for 7 years!

 

[Yew]

I'm not keeping all my tickets for 7 years!

Imagine the look on their face though ^^

 

[Tom B]

The delay-repay question is interesting, as certainly East Coast forms require an "explanation" should you not provide a clipped ticket for your journey. I'd hope that any barrier attendant who was anal about letting people retain them was dealt with severely.

The two employers I've claimed travel expenses from always requested a photocopy of the tickets, a receipt stating "Tickets to the value of £42" or whatever is useless.

 

[googolplex]

I usually have my ticket in one of the see through pockets on my wallet, with my railcard in the other. Then when I get to barriers I go to a manned one and just hold up the opened wallet, and they typically just wave me through.
Having a large suitcase on wheels with me most of the times I travel probably helps though!

Regarding expenses, I did once get a civil service department to accept a print out from the East Coast website as proof of my rail travel a few years ago (not submitted any since). Most I have noticed do ask for copies of the tickets though.
I also wonder what a receipt would show if you paid with rail travel vouchers. Presumably if they're yours it would be reasonable to expect to be reimbursed for their value as you can't use them on personal journeys, but a receipt might not reflect the value of the vouchers, (whereas a ticket would just show a warrant of some description was used, with the total ticket cost).

 

[Flamingo]

It's not uncommon to find passengers with a wallet full of tickets, looking through them trying to find an "in-date" return that has not been stamped, and which one is the "shortest" date. All obviously having been used for previous journeys (I mean, how many people travel from Bristol to Gloucester on return tickets and get a lift home every time for six or seven trips?).

In these scenarios I usually try to swipe the ticket to see if it has been through a barrier before. It's worth it to see their face when I say "It's been used, try another" and put it in my pocket.

 

[me123]

The delay-repay question is interesting, as certainly East Coast forms require an "explanation" should you not provide a clipped ticket for your journey. I'd hope that any barrier attendant who was anal about letting people retain them was dealt with severely.

The two employers I've claimed travel expenses from always requested a photocopy of the tickets, a receipt stating "Tickets to the value of £42" or whatever is useless.

Surely the receipts themselves should contain the details of the ticket, rather than just "tickets to the value of £x". Surely that would be a better solution. But, at the end of the day, the tickets do remain property of the railway, and as such the companies shouldn't be demanding that you keep them.

Alternatively, I don't know if the barriers can do this, but why don't they pit out the ticket, but in the process print a big black line down the middle at the end of the journey? I'm sure they do that on the Glasgow Subway with multi journey tickets, and it's immediately evident to TEs and the barrier that the ticket has been used, yet it's still available for expenses or delay repay.

 

[Greenback]

Alternatively, I don't know if the barriers can do this, but why don't they pit out the ticket, but in the process print a big black line down the middle at the end of the journey? I'm sure they do that on the Glasgow Subway with multi journey tickets, and it's immediately evident to TEs and the barrier that the ticket has been used, yet it's still available for expenses or delay repay.

I can think of several scenarios where a thick black line on your ticket will cause problems if the ticket hasn't been fully used up!

 

[bengley]

I don't care if tickets remain property of the railway. I have paid enough money for it, I will keep it if I want. Just like the several hundred tickets I have in my draw in front of me, I will keep them and there is nothing anyone can do to stop me.

 

[ralphchadkirk]

I don't care if tickets remain property of the railway. I have paid enough money for it, I will keep it if I want. Just like the several hundred tickets I have in my draw in front of me, I will keep them and there is nothing anyone can do to stop me.

Well, there is a lot the courts could do if you were prosecuted and the prosecution was successful. After all, it is theft.

BTW - you've paid money for a journey. The ticket is just a voucher saying you have paid.

 

[Freddie]

To throw another spanner in the works, if you want to apply to join East Coast's Loyalty Scheme...

You need to provide tickets that have been used by you worth £1,800 or more from a consecutive three month period in the last six months (not earlier that 1 August 2008).

.

Kinda interesting when more and more EC stations have ATBs...

 

[hairyhandedfool]

I don't care if tickets remain property of the railway. I have paid enough money for it, I will keep it if I want. Just like the several hundred tickets I have in my draw in front of me, I will keep them and there is nothing anyone can do to stop me.

You don't pay for the ticket, you pay for the journey(s).
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
I've sourced a receipt from my Fastis machine, it lists the following information.

• Company issuing ticket
• Station issuing ticket
• 'Window' issuing ticket
• Ticket type sold
• Fare setter
• Discount applied (if applicable)
• Origin and destination of ticket
• Ticket number
• Date of Travel
• Fare due
• Fare paid
• VAT paid (£0.00)
• VAT number
• Date of Transaction
• Time of Transaction
• Staff identification number
• Location number

Is there anything else that is needed for expenses?

 

[transportphoto]

You don't pay for the ticket, you pay for the journey(s).
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
I've sourced a receipt from my Fastis machine, it lists the following information.

• Company issuing ticket
• Station issuing ticket
• 'Window' issuing ticket
• Ticket type sold
• Fare setter
• Discount applied (if applicable)
• Origin and destination of ticket
• Ticket number
• Date of Travel
• Fare due
• Fare paid
• VAT paid (£0.00)
• VAT number
• Date of Transaction
• Time of Transaction
• Staff identification number
• Location number

Is there anything else that is needed for expenses?

No, but if multiple tickets are bought at once, it will only list the first on the receipt.

AFAIAA

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Fastis receipts show all the tickets

 

[stut]

I've sourced a receipt from my Fastis machine, it lists the following information.

• Company issuing ticket
• Station issuing ticket
• 'Window' issuing ticket
• Ticket type sold
• Fare setter
• Discount applied (if applicable)
• Origin and destination of ticket
• Ticket number
• Date of Travel
• Fare due
• Fare paid
• VAT paid (£0.00)
• VAT number
• Date of Transaction
• Time of Transaction
• Staff identification number
• Location number

Is there anything else that is needed for expenses?

That would do for me. So, where are these receipts issued?

 

[transportphoto]

Fastis receipts show all the tickets

Oh right, I know Tribute only shows the first ticket with limited other information... sorry.

 

[185]

Common sense solution is for barrier staff to utterly destroy the ticket with a hole puncher so it in no way can be used again. It's usually then you see the real fare dodgers, who want to reuse it getting animated.