Work expenses - what evidence does your employer accept/refuse

[northwichcat]

In response to threads about e-tickets, I was thinking about asking whether any employers still require physical tickets for expense claims. But I thought maybe it could be expanded to other areas.

My employer seems happy with a pdf of an email booking confirmation. Whether it's for train tickets or flights.

For foreign currency transactions they ask for a receipt and a redacted bank statement. But I recently found they had no problem with Curve card receipts. For those who don't know Curve is a Mastercard which allows you to put a transaction on another of your cards, you can select which one through the app. One of the main benefits of it is you often get a better rate on foreign exchange than using your other card directly. You can also take a photo of a receipt to attach to a transaction and then request an email receipt, which shows the physical receipt plus the amount spent in both the foreign currency and the amount charged to your other card in pounds.

I think the one thing they are funny about is transport tickets that don't specify where you are going from and to.

Fortunately, they don't seemed too fussed about itemised receipts for meal expenses, which can be difficult to obtain in some places and if you're abroad will be in a foreign language anyway!

 

[najaB]

It's been a little while since I've had to claim expenses, but my current employer isn't particularly strict about what they'll accept.

We book UK train tickets through the same travel portal as flights and they're settled centrally so there's no need to claim them back. When I've been overseas it's enough to have a credit/debit card receipt from the travel provider, I've not seen any requirement to provide the physical ticket in our handbook. That said, I can only think of one time that I've had to claim public transport, rather than an Uber or similar.

Like yourself, they don't require itemised receipts for meals, though they do need a list of who attended if there was more than one employee there - I guess so that expenses go back to the correct department.

 

[dastocks]

I've done expensed rail travel with a couple of employers over the years.

1. Public sector: I was attending a course in London for a week. I was not allowed to purchase tickets myself so when I applied I suggested a 7 day Travelcard as the cheapest option and quoted a photocard number. I actually had to go to the office of the person who was trying to implement my request and the only way they could do it was to issue 5 x Anytime Day returns. I could have swapped these for a first class Travelcard and had over £50 in change.

2. Private sector: Purchase the ticket and provide a scan of either the ticket itself or a receipt when claiming. One of the benefits of using a receipt is that it only showed what was paid with no details of the ticket that was issued. This would have allowed me to travel first class on an advance booked ticket if the resulting fare was less than the Anytime standard class fare for the same journey; I didn't do this myself but it was SOP for at least one of my colleagues. For rail/bus/tram travel in the Netherlands we just purchased and topped up an OV-Chipkaart and provided a receipt for that.

 

[johntea]

NHS

Train travel / hotel accomodation all sorted by an outside company - although you can 'suggest' particular preferences e.g. obviously they don't like anything other than Standard Class but if you find a couple of First Class advances that would be cheaper than say an open return they're usually happy to go with that

Food - Think last time I checked it was around £5 for lunch and £15 - £20 for an evening meal, they don't ask for receipts on our expenses system as long as they're below the limits - so despite their 'no alcohol with meal' guidance you can probably sneak a cheeky one in

All done through an online expenses system these days so obviously nothing physical involved

Although there is a caveat in that if they agree to send you on a training course and then you decide to leave (i.e. get a new job) within 2 years they expect you to pay the fees back on a sliding scale (something like 75% if you leave within a year, 50% within 2 years), obviously to stop you getting all trained up then instead of using it to help your employer instead use it to help your new employer! Which is fair enough I guess

 

[DelayRepay]

My employer used to have a very odd policy whereby they would not reimburse tube journeys paid for with contactless or oyster - you had to buy a paper ticket. The irony is I work for a bank who, at the time, were running campaigns promoting contactless payments.

They changed this a couple of years ago and now accept a print-out from the TFL website. I am not sure what is supposed to happen if you make a mixture of work and personal journeys and hit a price-cap as a result.

 

[PeterC]

With my last employer tickets had to be purchased centrally. Milage was normally paid to attend conferences which were normally in locations inconvenient for public transport.

Back in the 80s I was doing a lot of site visits and travel was reimbursed at the cost of an ordinary return by rail. This could be quite profitable if the rail route involved a substantial detour. Lunch was reimbursed at a flat rate while dinner and accomodation was against receipts. If eating in the hotel we always paid for meals separately as drinks, technically not reimbursed, weren't itemised but would appear as "bar" if on the hotel bill.

 

[northwichcat]

Lunch was reimbursed at a flat rate

I don't think that would be allowed now. If they paid you £10 for lunch, regardless of what you spent then I think that would count as £10 taxable income, which would mean you'd only see £7 if you're a basic rate taxpayer. HMRC are also very clear that if you have someone doing work experience or volunteering and you reimburse them more than they incur as expenses, then you are paying them and they are classed as a worker or employee so are entitled to the minimum wage for all their hours.

 

[najaB]

I am not sure what is supposed to happen if you make a mixture of work and personal journeys and hit a price-cap as a result.

My old employer advised anyone making regular travel to London to get a PAYG Oyster card and use that for business-related travel.

 

[northwichcat]

They changed this a couple of years ago and now accept a print-out from the TFL website. I am not sure what is supposed to happen if you make a mixture of work and personal journeys and hit a price-cap as a result.

When I went to London for work and was staying an extra day, which I'd booked off as annual leave, I purchased an Off-Peak Return to London Underground Z1-2. That went on my expense claim and covered the 2 x Underground journeys that I would have had to make anyway. Additional Underground journeys were then paid for using my contactless bank card. It might have been a little bit cheaper to not buy the through ticket but it made it much simpler for an expense claim.

 

[yorkie]

There are 4 organisations I may need to claim expenses from (though only two in most months) and it ranges from simply a booking confirmation email to having to submit the actual tickets (and in one case having to submit both portions if it is a return ticket).

 

[87 027]

I don't think that would be allowed now.

Flat rate expenses are still allowable by HMRC up to 'benchmark rates' which are £25 for an evening meal

Boring technical detail at the link below

EIM30240 - Exemption for amounts which would otherwise be deductible: payments at a benchmark rate - HMRC internal manual - GOV.UK

www.gov.uk