Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Expenses

I know I’ve had this rant before, but I NEED to do it again. I think the Company try as hard as they can to keep their money, which means screwing you in the end. I’ve come to terms with the many things that I have to pay for out of pocket: ATM fees, buying my own GPS, etc.

I even become resigned to the very slow and painful expense reporting process. As soon as I get home, I start grouping my receipts together by day, taping them to sheets of paper, and scanning them. Blue printing ink, you are not my friend.

I itemize all my expenses and send in the report right away. I e-mail any questions finance asks of my immediately. These usually are the same questions, which I gave the same answers to the 20 others times they asked me before, but it doesn’t help to get cheeky with Finance. Did I mention the questions are from India? The time for question/answer is about a day due to time zone differences.

Then finally after the three approvals come through, I wait for my direct deposit. If things go really well, I might get the money just as my credit card bill becomes due (about a month time).

Fine. So this Monday, even though I have many, many things to catch up on, I start the process. What happens? A new expense system. I took me a day to set up an account. Now apparently it’s going to take 3-5 days for Finance to send me a supplier account number. Until then I can’t even see what the new expense system looks like.

Will this be a better system? Unlikely. I saw a little paragraph of what to do with receipts at the Home page of the website. Yep. Still the same taping and scanning. Probably still the same questions. Ah, frustration.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

brutal! Is there any way you could get a slush fund, or a company card? It seems to me you're going to a lot more hassle than necessary. Employers should make it as easy as possible for their staff to recoup funds the employee has essentially fronted for them. Good luck!

Anonymous said...

Ah, I can relate. My last job was like this. It's like you have to have the money up front to have the job, which is ridiculous especially when you are just starting out. Good luck!