Government workers (i.e., employees, not necessarily contractors) should be getting GSA rates, which are significantly higher than $35 in most of the country and most of the world.
Yeah, no kidding. When I travel to Tokyo, the rate for meals and incidentals is something just north of $200 per day.
The rate for MIE in the DC metro area is about $70, being a high-cost area. The default or base rate is about $45.
I use the Federal per diem and we have some flexibility in booking flights so that we can use airlines where we get miles that may not always be the cheapest, but must be ‘reasonable’, whatever that translates to in monetary term. We are a small company, so the expectation is that you will charge it yourself and then get reimbursed after the travel. They do so directly in your next direct deposit without incident. The only complications I have ever run into were when a piece of equipment had to purchased on the road or when taking clients out to a business dinner at a yet unknown location. No problem if arranged in advance, but I have heard gripes when we didn’t get prior approval. That said, they are just gripes, and we always get paid.
I do have to save and scan my receipts however, for everything and they take our word for it with any tips/tolls we record. I have never been to a “mom and pop” place like the OP describes where I was not furnished with a receipt, even if it was hand written, so I have never had that kind of issue, and unless it exceeded the per diem, it wouldn’t matter anyway.
At previous companies where I worked, we had to book airline flights through their travel agent, who was largely incompetent, and they kept the miles. I always thought that was BS.
I meant $45. :smack:
Used to work for a relatively large Danish company (national telco) with a strict no-alcohol-on-the-expense-report policy. There was a lot of domestic travel and we tended to patronize the same hotels and restaurants - mostly restaurants who’d gladly issue a receipt saying “Dessert” rather than “Big ol’ honking tankard of beer”.
My current system actually works. Company card - not paid by me - and an online system that is intelligent enough to know my travel allowances. Hotels? Type in an address and we’ll pull up the 10 nearest - green button means you can book on your own, yellow means your boss will need to authorize, red means your VP will have to authorize. Same for flights. All charged to the card on file.
Expenses come in through the same system and it’ll flag what takes receipts - preferred vendors generate electronic receipts, so for may last trip, I didn’t submit one scrap of paperwork.
The only way I’ll pay anything on the card is if I have charges that the company refuses reimbursement on.
Currently the company I work for requires me to fill out a fairly close estimation of costs for pre-approval before travel. I don’t have to be spot on the amount, but fairly close. I get the GSA per diem rates for wherever I’m going. Both for lodging and meals. So the amount varries. I’ve had to go over that rate once in 5 years, when I couldn’t find a hotel for a last minute extended trip.
Day trips have to be over 12 hours before I’ll bet meal money, again the amount depends on where I’m going. I get money for personal milage on my car, and any tolls or parking. Anything over $70 has to have a reciept, but under that it doesn’t matter. Although if anything looks odd I’ll get a question about it.
Rental car is done via National so the company gets it’s cut, I don’t mind as it usually ends up with me getting a free upgrade.
Airfare is the biggest issue I have. We’re not allowed to pay for seat assignments when we book the tickets, and have to get the lowest price ticket we can find. Well screw that mess. I don’t book business class, or look for the most expensive ticket, but I purchase the one that fits into my travel day the best. I don’t want to fly out at the crack of dawn, or get home at 11pm. So I’ll book with whatever airline has the right combination of airports and times that I need. And I pay to pick my seat, damned if I’m sitting in the middle when I’m traveling for the customer. They don’t like it, they can fix their own problems and not ask me to fly someplace.
Although after reading some of the draconian travel policies here, maybe I shouldn’t complain that much.
I put the vast bulk of my work-related travel expenses (airfares, hotels, meals) onto my corporate Amex card. If I actually have to spend my own money at any stage, I fill in a form online and HR transfers the reimbursement directly into my bank account.
I worked for a state agency. The normal procedure was to get a fixed per diem for travel expenses. If you had unusually high expenses you could also put in for a reimbursement with receipts. Our business office would generally make the hotel arrangments so they were paid directly.
I work at a private university and they have a surprisingly simple approach to travel reimbursement. Everything gets charged to your personal card for reimbursement afterward. There aren’t any official per diem rates, they just ask you to be “reasonable” and of course it depends on what’s in your department or grant budget. Hotels like the Marriott or Hilton are typical.
Technically there are some rules regarding what flight you choose but I don’t think this is really enforced as long as you don’t fly first class. I think business class is permissible if the flight is over a certain length. Receipts aren’t required for any costs below $75 so no big deal if you lost a meal or taxi receipt. Our Accounts Payable dept will issue a paper check within 5 days of receiving the reimbursement form and receipts. The form is a little esoteric for people not familiar with the university billing system so sometimes it gets returned and that delays the reimbursement. I feel bad for people who don’t have personal credit cards; there’s really no good solution there. I’m traveling for work now so I’m definitely going to file for reimbursement as soon as I get back.
The hotel is paid directly by the company. Transport is either by hire car paid directly by the company or taxis paid for by the company via a “cabcharge” card that each employee has. There is no limit for the cabcharge card but it must be a legitimate work use. Airfares are paid and booked directly by the company. Meals are only paid on an overnight and we are paid for each meal that we are away from home for, so if you leave at breakfast time on day one and come back at lunch time on day two you’d get breakfast, lunch, and dinner for day one and breakfast and lunch for day two. We get a “domestic incidental” allowance which is supposed to cover laundry costs or something. The total of meal and domestic incidental allowances are a bit over $100/day tax free. No receipts required for anything and the amount of each allowance is the same regardless of what we actually spent. It is quite easy to make a substantial profit on overnight allowances.
Our roster program keeps track of our overnight allowances and spits out a report once a month that we check for accuracy and sign before faxing to payroll.
The amount of the allowances increases each year in line with CPI.
We have to book through the company travel agency, which at least has a good range of airfares. They want you to book hotels through them even if you can get a better rate from a conference. Airfare is direct billed, hotels go on a Corporate Amex card. When you fill out your your report using a pretty clunky on-line system, the Amex charges pop up automatically. They directly pay your Amex bill, which is a plus.
I think there are some guidelines about food, but not onerous ones, and in any case my management is very reasonable and I usually go to conferences or conference committee meetings where most of my food is paid for anyway.
The only annoying thing is that your report and receipts have to be scanned in and then emailed. That is fine for most of the company which is PC-based, but not for us who aren’t. We don’t have scanners floating around. I have to do it at home or on a copier. I’ve got to go and check to see if the file I produced has all the pages I need.
Amex card for hotels, Amtrak,car rentals, etc. I work for a government agency, so the limit for hotels rooms is whatever GSA allows for that state/county/city (which can be pretty high - it’s 269 right now for NYC) and
*accidentally hit submit *
Amex card for hotels, Amtrak,car rentals, etc. I work for a government agency, so the limit for hotels rooms is whatever GSA allows for that state/county/city (which can be pretty high - it’s 269 right now for NYC) and I receive the GSA per diem for overnight travel. Depending on what time I leave ( before 7am ) or return (after 7 pm), I may receive a full-per diem for the first and last day of travel. The per diem is supposed to cover breakfast, dinner, tips etc. My most common destination is Albany New York,and the per diem in that area i $61/day. I am reimbursed the IRS rate for any mileage I put on my personal vehicle. I can receive a meal allowance for non-overnight travel, based on time of departure/return, but that comes on my regular paycheck and is subject to tax.
And once again this evening proved to me how crummy the system I have to use is.
I ordered a pizza for delivery. I didn’t feel like going out, and besides I was talking to my GF online at the time. I paid with a CC over the phone, and asked the person who answered to please make sure I got a copy of the itemized receipt…I made sure to emphasis it needed to be itemized.
So the delivery guy gets here and…no receipt. At all. not even a regular CC slip with the total (if I bitch and moan and it’s only once in a great while, I can reimbursed without an itemized slip, but I can’t make a habit of it.) But this guy had nothing for me, other than the pizza. I certainly wasn’t going to ask him to go all the way back to the pizza place and then back here, and I don’t want to do it, besides which there is no guarantee at all that there is a copy for me back there anyway.
So now I have a $15 pizza I won’t get reimbursed for. Maybe it’s the universe’s way of telling me to not eat so much pizza and be healthier?
Edit: Technically, if I wanted, I could wait a couple days, go online, print out a copy of my credit card statement, highlight the payment to the pizza place, and do the aforementioned bitching and moaning…but it’s just not worth it.
^Couldn’t you just go down to the bar and have a few drinks (~15 worth), pay with your cc and ask the bartender to write up a receipt for food instead?