4 ms·

I think you misunderstood. > One employee traveling for work checked his dog into a kennel and billed it to his boss as a hotel expense. I read this as "emplo

by gniv 8y ago

I think you misunderstood. > One employee traveling for work checked his dog into a kennel and billed it to his boss as a hotel expense. I read this as "employee pretended that the kennel expense was a _human_ hotel expense". (And, presumably, the employee stayed with friends/family)

XCabbage 8y ago
I read it as "the expenses software requires expenses to be filed under one of a small number of categories, and the employee went for 'hotel' because it was the closest one available". I guess both interpretations are possible.
- scarejunba 8y ago
  Haha. Almost certainly what happened. If you want your people straining to figure out which category something is in then you're wasting their time. Should've used the tool to select the right category instead of making a human select a category and then dinging them for it. Then Finance can approve or whatever. The real thievery is the time expense software is stealing from the company by making people pick among all these categories. If it takes you an hour to fill in expenses, that task just cost the company half a grand.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    > The real thievery is the time expense software is stealing from the company by making people pick among all these categories. Oh yes. At my first workplace, I ended up using Emacs keyboard macros to convert from a bank statement dump to a format that could be imported into expense reporting system, and it took me less time than it would take to type in everything manually, because the system UI was so broken.
- ameister14 8y ago
  Possible, yes, but one requires multiple other leaps.
Someone1234 8y ago
But as an aside why shouldn't they be covering a dog's kennel bill? If the employee only needs to utilize the kennel because of the work-related travel, that is a travel related expense. Seems like great software if your goal as an employer is to make your employees outright refuse work-travel or to find a different job without it. Don't misunderstand: Outright fraud is wrong. But in a lot of cases employer's travel expenditure policy was never fit for purpose, and employees worked around the problems by submitting mis-characterized claims like the dog-kennel example. Instead of fixing the policy, they'd prefer to ignore WHY employees are doing these things (i.e. talk to them) and just lash out with punitive measures.
- pastage 8y ago
  My children get great child care paid by the goverment just for this reason, to help me be able to work. It would not be very popular to offer the same thing to handle dogs atm.
- ghaff 8y ago
  >But as an aside why shouldn't they be covering a dog's kennel bill? Because it's not the sort of expense that companies normally cover. Especially people who travel a lot have all sorts of second and third-order expenses resulting from the fact that they're away from home, may have to dress up for client meetings, etc. that are rarely covered by expense policies. They're also working extra hours when they travel. As partial compensation, many are also expensing fancier meals than they'd have at home--and are presumably being paid a competitive salary that reflects a fair bit of business travel. Whether all this is "fair" is at least somewhat a value judgement but has been the approximate norm since I first traveled for work a very long time ago.
  - Someone1234 8y ago
    > Because it's not the sort of expense that companies normally cover. Which is precisely what my post was saying was an issue with existing policy. I find it a little odd that you'd respond to point out the norm, to a post complaining about the norm, and expect the norm to be in and of itself a justification. Work created an additional cost via required travel. It isn't at all similar to your "clothing for meetings" example because you'd need those without the travel component. When travel itself creates additional costs: those costs should be compensated.

by gniv 8y ago

XCabbage 8y ago

I read it as "the expenses software requires expenses to be filed under one of a small number of categories, and the employee went for 'hotel' because it was the closest one available". I guess both interpretations are possible.

scarejunba 8y ago
Haha. Almost certainly what happened. If you want your people straining to figure out which category something is in then you're wasting their time. Should've used the tool to select the right category instead of making a human select a category and then dinging them for it. Then Finance can approve or whatever. The real thievery is the time expense software is stealing from the company by making people pick among all these categories. If it takes you an hour to fill in expenses, that task just cost the company half a grand.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  > The real thievery is the time expense software is stealing from the company by making people pick among all these categories. Oh yes. At my first workplace, I ended up using Emacs keyboard macros to convert from a bank statement dump to a format that could be imported into expense reporting system, and it took me less time than it would take to type in everything manually, because the system UI was so broken.
ameister14 8y ago
Possible, yes, but one requires multiple other leaps.

Someone1234 8y ago

But as an aside why shouldn't they be covering a dog's kennel bill? If the employee only needs to utilize the kennel because of the work-related travel, that is a travel related expense. Seems like great software if your goal as an employer is to make your employees outright refuse work-travel or to find a different job without it. Don't misunderstand: Outright fraud is wrong. But in a lot of cases employer's travel expenditure policy was never fit for purpose, and employees worked around the problems by submitting mis-characterized claims like the dog-kennel example. Instead of fixing the policy, they'd prefer to ignore WHY employees are doing these things (i.e. talk to them) and just lash out with punitive measures.

pastage 8y ago
My children get great child care paid by the goverment just for this reason, to help me be able to work. It would not be very popular to offer the same thing to handle dogs atm.
ghaff 8y ago
>But as an aside why shouldn't they be covering a dog's kennel bill? Because it's not the sort of expense that companies normally cover. Especially people who travel a lot have all sorts of second and third-order expenses resulting from the fact that they're away from home, may have to dress up for client meetings, etc. that are rarely covered by expense policies. They're also working extra hours when they travel. As partial compensation, many are also expensing fancier meals than they'd have at home--and are presumably being paid a competitive salary that reflects a fair bit of business travel. Whether all this is "fair" is at least somewhat a value judgement but has been the approximate norm since I first traveled for work a very long time ago.
- Someone1234 8y ago
  > Because it's not the sort of expense that companies normally cover. Which is precisely what my post was saying was an issue with existing policy. I find it a little odd that you'd respond to point out the norm, to a post complaining about the norm, and expect the norm to be in and of itself a justification. Work created an additional cost via required travel. It isn't at all similar to your "clothing for meetings" example because you'd need those without the travel component. When travel itself creates additional costs: those costs should be compensated.