Alcohol reimbursement

[ktulu]

For those of you you work for consultants, or basically anyone who bills out time, travel, etc.....

What are your policies on alcohol reimbursement? Yes/No? What?

Reason for asking is that a colleague and I are starting our own firm, and we are wondering how we want to approach this situation, mainly for the liability concerns.

So if anyone here has any insight as to what their firms do, I would appreciate it....

Thanks,

ktulu

 

[bigray76]

For those of you you work for consultants, or basically anyone who bills out time, travel, etc.....
What are your policies on alcohol reimbursement? Yes/No? I am a Gigantic *********

Reason for asking is that a colleague and I are starting our own firm, and we are wondering how we want to approach this situation, mainly for the liability concerns.

So if anyone here has any insight as to what their firms do, I would appreciate it....

Thanks,

ktulu

ktulu,

At my company, if I 'entertain' a client, I am reimbursed 100%, regardless of how I spent that money (granted, if the tab is too high I get grilled over expenses). Let's say I take a client out to dinner and we have a couple of drinks and a nice meal... no problem. Should I order a really nice bottle of wine and tack another couple of hundred on the tab, they will probably tell me to eat it.

Likewise, when I travel, I am given a meal stipend per day. I can use it anyway I want. I get reimbursed for that amount regardless if I am under or over that amount. (Typically $75/day). Usually I just bill what I actually used or no greater than that amount (haven't gotten over that yet). I do not need to submit receipts and generally I am eating at the hotel or at a stop somewhere on the road.

-Ray

 

[benbo]

I don't know what our policy is for entertaining clients since I don't do that, but for traveling we just get a certain amount for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and incidentals. Don't ask, don't tell on what we spend it on. Some people skip meals and make a hefty profit on their trips.

At my last company, it depended on whether you were on long term travel or short term. On short term (< 3 mos) you had to account for everything with receipts. On long term you got perdiem. Of course, I remember various trips to Taiwan where people would get receipt pads from the hotel, and then ask taxi drivers to fill them out (in Chinese) and claim huge amounts. So you have to be careful.

 

[grover]

I work for the federal government; we get a fixed per diem per location that we get regardless of how much we spend or what we spend it on.

A lot of placed, we'd stay at hotels that server free beer. :brickwall: The rest of the time? Uncle sam foots the bar tab

It's amazing how far $35/day will go if you eat a free hotel breakfast, fast food for lunch and a free hotel dinner and drinks :thumbs: And places that had $100+ per day were just awesome. There is no way I can eat $120 worth of food in a day regardless of where it is- and believe me, on some of these trips, I tried!

 

[MA_PE]

I work for a consulting firm and our policy is that alcoholic beverages are NOT a reimbursable expense, unless authorized by a principal or associate in charge of the project. Our charges (inculding expenses) that are processed by our accounting department get passed along to the client. We do not pass along bar tabs. Now you can eat at a restaurant , pay with a credit card and use the receipt fpr reimbursement without submitting the itemized check which lists specific items for the meal. Thus you can order a steak and wash it down with some suds and get reimbursed. If you submit the detail check and you're not a principal/associate the accounting department will deduct the cost of the beers from the check and not pay you for them. Even if you are an associate or principal I believe they call you on it for specific approval.

Meal costs/per diems are not limited or fixed, but must be "reasonable". If you go out for a "nice" meal chances are they won't blast you for it, but if you consistently go to a 5 star restauarant you'll get some grief. The idea is not to take advantage of the situation and the stated company poilcy is that you drink on your own time. As far as entertaining clients, that is left up to management who have the authority to approve the expense on the overhead budget.

Maximum charge paid without a receipt is $25. So if you want to grab a pizza and a 6-pack and eat in the room it's possible to get your money back.

 

[Road Guy]

I think in terms of liability if you are the employer i assume you would have to check the states "laws" or previous litigation where you plan on incorporating at.

I take clients out for drinks all the time and it gets paid on the expense report, it just has to be under the "entertainment" charge number and the kicker is that you have to list the specific client whom you took out for drinks.

If you just have a beer by yoursefl while on the job, it really depends (for us) is if the job is cost plus or lump sum. Cost Plus you can forget about it, lump sum, the project manager has signature control over all expense reports so you can do whatever he /she will alllow. it wasnt this way at my old job, but I really like this method. At my old job someone could charge expenses to the job that I wouldnt see until their electronic expense reports were posted on the network. and by then it was a huge pain to track the person down and get them to revise it

Most of the time since copies of the full expense reports is included in a clients invoice (say for the month of February you took the City Manager to a strip bar, and then had actual work related expense reports (mileage, hotel, etc) on the same invoice to another client (or the same client) the AP people will copy the entire expense report and include in an invoice (so you can get clients caught in a sticky situation if they are not supposed to be doing those kind of things officially)

what most people I know do is they either just charge it as mileage (nice catch all) or they get the bar / strip joint to print a duplicate receipt which just shows total cost and not itemized out. Alot of places can do that for you.

we have had surveyors <at my old job> who got drunk while out of town in company trucks get DUI's, and one almost killed a lady, And we couldnt even fire them because we (not me, but our company) didnt have anything in the employee handbook the specifically said you cant drink and drive a company vehicle,. so while he waited to go to court and then jail he could still work (WTF)

 

[ktulu]

we have had surveyors <at my old job> who got drunk while out of town in company trucks get DUI's, and one almost killed a lady, And we couldnt even fire them because we (not me, but our company) didnt have anything in the employee handbook the specifically said you cant drink and drive a company vehicle,. so while he waited to go to court and then jail he could still work (WTF)

That's what I am trying to figure out. What is the best policy to enforce that can shield us from any possible litigation b/c an "employee killed someone while drunk, and we basically bought the alcohol b/c we reimburse for it...." type scenario

I guess it's a sticky situation all the way around.

Thanks for the input, guys.

 

[Road Guy]

in all honesty what they did was modify the online employee handbook and add a sentence that forbid the use of alchohal while driving a work related vehicle, a work related rental car, AND while using your personal vehicle while charging mileage.

they made us print and sign a new page that said we had read it.

Then since our company insurance (not health but regualr insurance) went so high that we all had to do about 20 hours worth of mandatory health and safety training, it was a huge pain in the *** and a huge amount of money that one surveyor cost the company.

It even made the survey department lose a big job at a large airport because their insurance "risk" rating was too high for the client to accept.

If It was a small company I would personally take the easy way out and just prohibit drinking (or reimbursement off said drinks)

And if you and or people that will be entertaining clients need to take people out for drinks then identify those people and pay them an extra $5,000 and then tell them dont submit expense reports.

 

[mizzoueng]

I work for a consultaning company, we are not supposed to buy beer etc when we are out for dinner. If you are out with a client you can usually get away with it if you just order one or two. But if you are hitting the bar for a few hours, then its all on you.

There is a line in the company handbook that you are not supposed to drink during work hours, which includes times you are entertaining clients, etc. No drinking and driving, etc.