[lbills]

I am trying to come up with an expense reimbursement system that is easy to administer. I have a hard time getting adequate receipts from employees for their travel expenses and they constantly hand in expense reports with multiple errors. They make such a mess of the whole process that I find I spend way too much time trying to sort it all out. Most of the problems occur when they attend conferences three times a year. We prefer to pay the hotel and airfare charges with our company charge card and have the employee put the other charges on their personal cards for reimbursement at the end of the month. As hard as our admin gal tries to restrict the charges on the corporate card to room fees only, the employees still charge food to the room and have to be chased for the proper receipts. Often the employee gets confused and thinks the food was on their personal card and I have to prove otherwise. Sometimes they wind up putting the room charges on their personal card when trying to sort it out. It never fails to turn into a big mess. Any suggestions are welcome. I am thinking of switching to a non accountable plan for conference expenses. Can anyone tell me if that makes sense? One of our clients recommended it and said there was a lot of complaining at first, but it did make the whole process so much easier. I'm not entirely sure how it would work. Would they still submit an expense report without receipts and I would add that to wages or would I have to come up with a per diem amount instead? Is this a more expensive way of handling expenses because we no longer get a deduction and have to pay payroll taxes on the amount? Thanks for any help you might be able to provide.

Lorraine