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That is the crux of it. I have a background in finance, and I think everyone is missing the problem that this is trying to solve. People are careless when th

That is the crux of it. I have a background in finance, and I think everyone is missing the problem that this is trying to solve. People are careless when they claim expenses. They claim for things they lost the receipt for and then they try and pressure some accounts clerk into forcing it through. They make careless mistakes like multiplying their milage by the wrong rate, because they don't see why they should have to look up the right one. Then their line manager doesn't get around to signing it off, so employee chases accounts team, and accounts team have to chase approvers. Senior people are usually worst. The accounts team then hand to justify why they processed a claim despite x,y and z...to external auditors. Setting an expectation that if you don't get it right up front, the computer won't let you through is a very powerful selling point to a CFO who has to control this rubbish

rwmj 4y ago
This would be true if they weren't employees of the same company who are wasting time on make-work nonsense when they could be doing something productive.
Moissanite 4y ago
Wouldn't a flat per diem payment make more sense then? That way you don't need the complex (and presumably pricey) expenses software, and you don't torture your employees with it when they could be doing something useful.
- hef19898 4y ago
  Depending on jurisdiction, taxes. So it is most likely not the company responsible for the "torturing"...
  - oogali 4y ago
    This. In the US, maximum allowable per diem rates vary by location and are set by the Internal Revenue Service. https://www.gsa.gov/perdiem https://www.gsa.gov/perdiem
- p_l 4y ago
  In reality you end up dealing with a flat per diem... that you have to calculate to the hour with things like crossing borders (even funnier when you have to include work authorizations in there, like with Switzerland!), and you still have expense claims, which might or might not be discounted by per diem depending on type of the claim!
- xmcqdpt2 4y ago
  Even if you have a per diem you still need to expense things, just less of them. So the system still needs to exist. Unless your per diem is completely over the top, you'll need to expense flights, hotels, team dinners, client dinners, etc.
robertlagrant 4y ago
I think it's fine to have expenses software, but I'd love to have something modern and usable. I think the problem is that if you try and make that, all your customers secretly want a clunky ERP and need all the non-expenses features built.
rightbyte 4y ago
Workers need to stop giving corporation access to their credit card. That is an even simpler solution.
- aikinai 4y ago
  I think you have the incentives backwards here. When you use your own credit card for company expenses, you can rack up tons of personal benefits. The company would prefer you to use their card so they get those instead. A few years ago Google, for example, cracked down and started requiring company cards for expensive purchases like flights.
  - fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
    This particular form of embezzlement is legal so everybody can get it out of their system.
  - bonzini 4y ago
    And then you have silly rules like "company credit card expires after 9 months of no use" coupled which basically prevents people who travel rarely from following the rules.
  - rightbyte 4y ago
    Oh ye I forgot kickbacks on CC is a thing in the US. I even remember a colleague when I worked in California boast to me about his $10000 claim recipe and the kickback. Since it was a 5 man startup at that point I don't think it was worth the credit risk though. Ye well ... dunno who to blame then in the CC mess.
    - rhn_mk1 4y ago
      The blame is now even more clearly on the employees. They get the hassle of expenses because they want the kickbacks.
      - aikinai 4y ago
grogenaut 4y ago
But it turns out you can actually have good UI on the systems with good controls. At work we used to use concur and then move to expensify which is naturally easier to use even though I have had some issues with it. Before concur we were using some ridiculously terrible Oracle solution which made the concur solution look decent by comparison. Honestly it really felt like Oracle was forcing their developers to use Oracle forms the develop the application. (edit: terrible stt)
TeMPOraL 4y ago
I think it's still not the problem being solved here. To my understanding, from conversations with people on the finance side of things, the point of this game is that: 1. If you get everyone to do their own expensing; and 2. If you set up a system that's robust against mistakes made by people with no understanding of corporate finance, which is almost everyone in a given company (that's the "if you don't get it right up front, the computer won't let you through" principle you mention); and 3. If you tell everyone to use it and that it's their responsibility to be good stewards of corporate money they have the privilege of using, etc.; then... 4. ...you get to hire less people on the finance side of things. I think it's another case of large organizations chasing legibility[0], to the detriment of everyone within. It's similar to what a lot of other office/business software does: it lets the company get rid of a class of specialist, whose salaries are clearly visible on the company books, by distributing their work more-less evenly across everyone else in the company. This, obviously, causes everyone to lose productivity, as they're being distracted with work that's outside their specialization/expertise, but that only adds up to an "unexplained" overall small productivity drop of the organization (and the frustration of most employees) and is not clearly visible in the company financials. -- [0] - To borrow the term from Seeing Like a State.
- tw98521358 4y ago
  Yep well described
josephcsible 4y ago
> They claim for things they lost the receipt for and then they try and pressure some accounts clerk into forcing it through. If you lose a receipt, or aren't given one at all, for a reimbursable expense, should your employer just tell you that you're out the money for it?
tw98521358 4y ago
On a small scale it makes sense, if you don’t have enough work to fill one employee worth of time it makes sense to distribute that work to everyone and loose efficiency. If the company is bigger than a certain size there is enough work and a specialist would do it faster and cheaper but internal accounting loves to appear more productive by cutting headcount and hiding costs through distribution.

rwmj 4y ago

This would be true if they weren't employees of the same company who are wasting time on make-work nonsense when they could be doing something productive.

Moissanite 4y ago

Wouldn't a flat per diem payment make more sense then? That way you don't need the complex (and presumably pricey) expenses software, and you don't torture your employees with it when they could be doing something useful.

hef19898 4y ago
Depending on jurisdiction, taxes. So it is most likely not the company responsible for the "torturing"...
- oogali 4y ago
  This. In the US, maximum allowable per diem rates vary by location and are set by the Internal Revenue Service. https://www.gsa.gov/perdiem https://www.gsa.gov/perdiem
p_l 4y ago
In reality you end up dealing with a flat per diem... that you have to calculate to the hour with things like crossing borders (even funnier when you have to include work authorizations in there, like with Switzerland!), and you still have expense claims, which might or might not be discounted by per diem depending on type of the claim!
xmcqdpt2 4y ago
Even if you have a per diem you still need to expense things, just less of them. So the system still needs to exist. Unless your per diem is completely over the top, you'll need to expense flights, hotels, team dinners, client dinners, etc.

robertlagrant 4y ago

I think it's fine to have expenses software, but I'd love to have something modern and usable. I think the problem is that if you try and make that, all your customers secretly want a clunky ERP and need all the non-expenses features built.

rightbyte 4y ago

Workers need to stop giving corporation access to their credit card. That is an even simpler solution.

aikinai 4y ago
I think you have the incentives backwards here. When you use your own credit card for company expenses, you can rack up tons of personal benefits. The company would prefer you to use their card so they get those instead. A few years ago Google, for example, cracked down and started requiring company cards for expensive purchases like flights.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
  This particular form of embezzlement is legal so everybody can get it out of their system.
- bonzini 4y ago
  And then you have silly rules like "company credit card expires after 9 months of no use" coupled which basically prevents people who travel rarely from following the rules.
- rightbyte 4y ago
  Oh ye I forgot kickbacks on CC is a thing in the US. I even remember a colleague when I worked in California boast to me about his $10000 claim recipe and the kickback. Since it was a 5 man startup at that point I don't think it was worth the credit risk though. Ye well ... dunno who to blame then in the CC mess.
  - rhn_mk1 4y ago
    The blame is now even more clearly on the employees. They get the hassle of expenses because they want the kickbacks.
    - aikinai 4y ago

grogenaut 4y ago

But it turns out you can actually have good UI on the systems with good controls. At work we used to use concur and then move to expensify which is naturally easier to use even though I have had some issues with it. Before concur we were using some ridiculously terrible Oracle solution which made the concur solution look decent by comparison. Honestly it really felt like Oracle was forcing their developers to use Oracle forms the develop the application. (edit: terrible stt)

TeMPOraL 4y ago

I think it's still not the problem being solved here. To my understanding, from conversations with people on the finance side of things, the point of this game is that: 1. If you get everyone to do their own expensing; and 2. If you set up a system that's robust against mistakes made by people with no understanding of corporate finance, which is almost everyone in a given company (that's the "if you don't get it right up front, the computer won't let you through" principle you mention); and 3. If you tell everyone to use it and that it's their responsibility to be good stewards of corporate money they have the privilege of using, etc.; then... 4. ...you get to hire less people on the finance side of things. I think it's another case of large organizations chasing legibility[0], to the detriment of everyone within. It's similar to what a lot of other office/business software does: it lets the company get rid of a class of specialist, whose salaries are clearly visible on the company books, by distributing their work more-less evenly across everyone else in the company. This, obviously, causes everyone to lose productivity, as they're being distracted with work that's outside their specialization/expertise, but that only adds up to an "unexplained" overall small productivity drop of the organization (and the frustration of most employees) and is not clearly visible in the company financials. -- [0] - To borrow the term from Seeing Like a State.

tw98521358 4y ago
Yep well described

josephcsible 4y ago

> They claim for things they lost the receipt for and then they try and pressure some accounts clerk into forcing it through. If you lose a receipt, or aren't given one at all, for a reimbursable expense, should your employer just tell you that you're out the money for it?

tw98521358 4y ago

On a small scale it makes sense, if you don’t have enough work to fill one employee worth of time it makes sense to distribute that work to everyone and loose efficiency. If the company is bigger than a certain size there is enough work and a specialist would do it faster and cheaper but internal accounting loves to appear more productive by cutting headcount and hiding costs through distribution.