Just a quick question about employee travel expenses. One of my clients has paid a couple of his employees travel expenses. They normally go to jobs (commercial window cleaner) in one of the Company's vans, but on a couple of occasions had to make their own way to jobs by public transport (meeting the guy driving the van at the job) so my client has paid them a random £10 or £15 to cover their costs. I don't have any receipts for any train or bus fares from the employees so no idea how much they actually paid. How should these be treated in the accounts? They were not paid as part of their pay.
How it should work is as a petty cash system where the workers are given (say) £15 and then either they return with the change and receipts for the balance or it gets deducted from salary as per an advance on salary (best incentive ever to ensure that workers bring receipts!).
That this is in the past tense the owner cannot now impose rules that the workers had no idea about at the time.
The general rule is as always no receipt, no payment. The fact that the money was advanced was just one of timing.
This leaves two possibilities. Either the expense advances are recorded as P9D/P11D items or as a goodwill gesture the director takes the debt on themselves by transfer to the DLA.
That would be my non too popular approach with the clients but I am sure that others will have different approaches.
Again, sorry that I didn't answer sooner Pauline,
kind regards,
Shaun.
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Many thanks for the reply. I know you're busy! I will probably go the DLA route, but in future I will ask my client to get the guys to keep receipts. (Although wouldn't hold out much hope of that!)
