Friday, March 02, 2007

Minor Panic

Did you ever lose a receipt for a business expense and then have a hassle being reimbursed for it? I had to buy some baby gifts for a couple of business contacts. My boss knew about it and approved the amounts I was planning to spend, which were not large-- $50 for one and $25 for the other. So I went off to BabyGap, bought exactly $75 worth of cute stuff, and it was done.
But a few days ago, I went to submit the expenses and I couldn't find the receipt! It's usually no big deal if you don't have a receipt for anything under $25, but I was just groaning, thinking that a $75 charge at the Gap was surely the kind of thing that would raise someone's eyebrows, even if my boss signed off on it!
Luckily, the receipt, and some others I had paperclipped to it, turned out to be stuck to the back of a magnetic mirror I keep in my desk drawer-- problem solved. But I am curious now as to what would have happened if I hadn't found it!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

girl I try to now save my receipts due to being a tax deductable freak...lol...that's nice how you get reimbursed

Anonymous said...

Wonder if you can show your credit card statement or ask the credit card company to send you a proof if the purchase is made by a credit card...

Madame X said...

I was planning to submit my credit card statement, but that wouldn't show that I bought baby clothes, rather than, say, a pair of women's size 6 jeans!

Jane said...

I hoard my taxi-cab receipts like it's going out of style. When I get the reimbursement check a few weeks later, I feel like it's my half-birthday, and my eccentric aunt has given me an unexpected 10-spot. Then I put those checks directly into savings. It's a nice way to supplement a regular savings plan with some additional dough.

Anonymous said...

I'm sure you could have used your credit card statement. I have used my credit card records for meal expensing. While this is a bit more specific because at least the receipt would show it's for a restaurant, I could still have gotten a bottle of wine instead of a dinner delivered to my office.

TNelson said...

The company I work for is SO PICKY about this stuff. If you take a client to dinner, for example, not only do you have to submit the receipt for the meal but also the itemized receipt (list) of what everyone ordered. Indeed...what a hassle!
Trish

Anonymous said...

I got one of thos multifunction machines that can scan straight to PDF or TIF. I scan all bills/receipts/whatever right away and toss just about all of the originals. I then have folders of "receipts" by year and then by vendor. If you scan pretty much as you receive, then the date stamp on the file is accurate so you don't have to both renaming the scan files.

It really is the way to go.

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Anonymous said...

With a company like Gap, they can pull up your receipt by using your credit card you used. Gap, Banana Republic and Old Navy are all apart of the same company. I work for Old navy...I should know...

English Major said...

Heh.

In general, I could not care less about receipts, but if it's a reimbursable expense, I'm a total stickler. My boyfriend and I stopped into Kinko's the other day so that he could do some work-related color copying, and they have the most ridiculous receipt system--apparently, you put the card to which you just charged things into a machine and it runs off a receipt, but here's the catch: it can only print the receipt once. So, as it happened, the printer malfunctioned, and the guy behind the counter said there was no way to get another copy of the receipt--the data had been deleted. What?

Anyway, I displayed my bane-of-the-minimum-wage-worker side: I stepped in and asked the guy to write out a receipt, sign it, date it, and include the phone number of the branch. He did.

Anyway, I guess I'd submit the charge on your credit-card statement and explain to your boss. I'm sure you have enough credibility to make it work.