I HATE Expense Reports!

[browntown]

Originally Posted by imcarthur

I am bad about expenses. I submitted a report in Sept for 2 years. I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate doing expenses. A colossal abuse of a salesman's time is a regular expense report. Only call reports ranks lower on the scale. Or budget reports & forecasts.

Sales Managers Take Note - reports justify YOUR existence - not ours. Stuff it.

Ian

I hear you. The pharmaceutical biz has more reports than anyone, and the biweekly reports for a couple grand each that are completed outside of work hours are a pita.

[Jeff Higgins]

I do a lot of emergent travel for my company in support of AOG ("aircraft on ground") repairs. The company makes allowances as far as the level of detail expected on expense reports related to this sort of travel. It was kind of their way of making up for the midnight, two hour notice, get to the airport and we'll tell you where you are going and how long you'll be gone treatment. The problem now is, however, that the company has off loaded all expense report processing to some Indian firm. This firm just lumps AOG travel in with pre-planned business travel, and challenges us for the details we were previously allowed to ommit. Fewer and fewer of us even answer the phone in the middle of the night anymore...

There have now been trips where I have spent more time once home battling the Indian bean counters than I spent on the trip. What really irks me about that is that I'm not allowed to charge that time against the trip; I wind up charging it against my department's overhead budget. I'm trying to convince my manager that we need a seperate budget to charge to for dealing with our expense reports, so that we can gain some visibility on just how much it is costing us.

It's frustrating to me when I consider that our company trusts us to fly halfway around the world to repair up to $170M machines, but does not trust us to give accurate expense reports when we get back. The battles tend to be over a relatively few dollars, or over percentage points on exchange rates. This, on expense reports that can easily go well into the five figure range if we are gone long enough. Oh well; like I said, there are getting to be fewer of us that will even pick up that phone when it rings in the middle of the night. They reap what they sow...

[Dave L]

todays schedule;

drive in to the office 8:30 - 10:00
expenses 10:15 - 11:00
Meeting 11:00-1:00 (the reason I drove into the office) CANCELLED with no notice
Ship stuff out to customers 11:00 - 11:45
Call reports from last week 1:00 - 2:00
territory overview 2:00 - 2:15
event reports from last week 2:15 - 2:45
Drive home 3:30 - 5:00

Time spent talking to or meeting with clients 0H 0M, or 25% of my week because yesterday was a holiday.

[id10t]

Makes me glad I work in education... I don't travel much, but when I do...

Airfare and hotel are pre-arranged and pre-paid. Only extras I pay for is room service, calls, etc. which I don't do. I do have to pay parking, cab fare, etc. but that is reimbursed within 2 or 3 days of coming back and giving up the receipts. For meals, I'm given a certain amount for each one, anything more I spend comes from my pocket, anything less goes into my pocket (I don't do business meals, etc. or entertain others - thats the guys that wear ties jobs). I get a flat rate for miles, and we have "official" mile lists (that are padded by about 10%) to just about anywhere we'd drive to in the state. Meals, miles, and any extra costs (documented by receipt only) is paid just a few days after I get back to the office.

[WolfeMacleod]

My wife has to submit her mileage reports on a weekly basis. They are paid out in bi-weekly checks that are for the same dates as the pay period. She usually gets the checks three weeks after submitting the reports. Expenses are a different ballgame. She submits the report and receipts (which is now only hotel charges because she just gets food at Safeway for the week and doesn't eat out, company hassels her if she submits that receipt) the Friday she returns home. She only works Mon-Thurs. The check for those expenses take a minimum of SIX weeks to get to her, sometimes up to TEN weeks. There is ONE accts. payable person for ALL of Blockbuster and so things take a looooong time to be processed. Add even more time to that if my wife's boss is on PTO or in the Portland office.

Add to that, she is hourly and doesn't get to charge the time spent doing the reports since all hours are charged per store code, not to a central LP cost center like it used to be. It's ridiculous.

[M.D. Holloway]

Originally Posted by Kurt V

Is that gal across the hall in the picture hot?

She is pretty hot. She has a great personality, loves to joke around and is always going out with sprting events, plays, musicals and has a steady stream of guys paying her a visit throughout the day. But here is the thing, she is Mormon.

Not that being Mormon is a bad thing. Actually, I am envious of the guy she marrys. She has said to me on several occasions that her future husband is gonna be a very very happy man. The most she will do with a boy is kiss him. She is a strict virgin. She even went so far as to tell me that when she gets the erge she won't even 'self gratify' herself, instead she prays!

Ya, some Mormon boy is gonna be getting it good someday...

[p911dad]

Angela, here is an old expense account parable, involving what you are referring to- An old real estate agent had his Stetson blow off and the client's dog ran off with it. The next month he added the hat to his expense report, $20. lost Stetson. The accounting bureau rejected the charge, stating "we don't pay for hats". The next month the old agent put in his expense report, adding, "the hat is in here, find it!" Make 'em find the $10.86! Glenn