Travel expenses?

[Carthage]

My employer often requires me to travel around the UK for work, paying my expenses myself, and then reclaiming them.
Recently however, they have been taking months to pay my expenses.
At the moment they owe me around £400, for example.

Is there any legal requirement for them to pay me within a set time, or can I refuse to travel if it's initially at my expense?

[Fun Bus]

Months is a royal piss take. In my experience, they're normally paid every calendar month as long as the claim goes in before a certain date each month.

[mug81]

Agreed- once a month should be the worst case IMO. It's give and take though, always best to stay on top of it rather than hit them with a massive pile of receipts on the last day- that doesn't help anyone. Not uncommon for companies to get lackadaisical which is all very well but it's a serious amount of cash to us mere mortals. I find always being nice to admin usually makes sure all goes smoothly

[andy-xr]

One employer did this to me too, to the tune of a couple of grand in hotel bills after travelling across Germany and California. After around 6 weeks I really needed that money and was calling back in to HQ asking what the problem was to be told that they were higher than normal and had to go through another checking round.

I stopped doing any travel til they a) paid me and b) sent me a company credit card. I was lucky as I had my sales VP on side who gave Finance a round of fks for me being unproductive while they sorted themselves out.

[MacW]

Start expensing all the credit card interest also.

I submit my expenses on a weekly basis so I expect them to be authorised on a weekly basis also. Admittedly my work tends to be abroad so the monthly total pretty much exceeds my monthly salary, non payment would mean me refusing to work until it was resolved.

[750turbo]

Carthage said:

My employer often requires me to travel around the UK for work, paying my expenses myself, and then reclaiming them.
Recently however, they have been taking months to pay my expenses.
At the moment they owe me around £400, for example.

Is there any legal requirement for them to pay me within a set time, or can I refuse to travel if it's initially at my expense?

They are Royally taking the Michael!

Not sure what the legalities are if any.

We used to be monthly - This was 15 years ago.

We then moved to fortnightly.

We are now weekly, therefore being a tightarse Scotsman I am happy to see the money in my account long before I even have my CCard statement

[supertouring]

I found that expenses would always be paid on the day I chased them with finance - strange that.

[pherlopolus]

I have a corp Amex card, any cash expenses are generally paid within 7 days of submission.

Wouldn't have it any other way! previous employer could take 6-8 weeks so we arranged a cash advance every month

[Carthage]

I submit them electronically within a few days - they get 'checked' by one dept, then passed for payment to the budget holder. All are systems/generic emails addresses so hard to chase.

The thing is, I don't have a lot of spare cash, and find having to 'lend' money this way difficult to budget. :-(

Not sure what to do.

[StevieBee]

Carthage said:

Is there any legal requirement for them to pay me within a set time, or can I refuse to travel if it's initially at my expense?

The law protects you in so far as supporting the extent of the time period that is laid out in your contract of employment. You should therefore check what is included in yours on this subject and if they are exceeding the stated period of time, then they are in breach of contract. If nothing is included then you have the legal right to request its inclusion.

If you need to travel to do your job but you do not have the means to do so financially, then your employer is obliged to provide you with cash (or other means of payment) to enable you to do your job. If they don't, and you can't (or refuse) to travel, they cannot fire you if you don't do your job because they have not provided you the means to do your job. But whatever is written in your contract trumps this.

Bottom line: check what's in your contract. Talk to your bosses.

Caveat: I'm not a legal expert, info is based upon my understanding of this issue from the side of the employer.

[AGK]

I can submit them when I want and they are usually approved and paid there and then.

I've had a few jobs where they take ages and it was a pain in the arse.

[andy-xr]

Carthage said:

I submit them electronically within a few days - they get 'checked' by one dept, then passed for payment to the budget holder. All are systems/generic emails addresses so hard to chase.

The thing is, I don't have a lot of spare cash, and find having to 'lend' money this way difficult to budget. :-(

Not sure what to do.

It used to be the case that people would get a specific credit card for expenses and just use it for that, even the 50000% one would be fine as you'd bill it back to the company anyway, long as what you're using it for would take a card you'd be fine.

Otherwise I'd be asking for a company card or a float upfront to help you do your job. I think if you broach it with them to say it's stopping you being able to do your job properly it might sort some things out