finboi

Fi-nance

Most wild expense policies (in either direction)

I recently grabbed dinner with a friend who's a consultant at Boston Consulting Group (BCG). He claimed there are no real hard rules for expensing travel and meals. This is wildly different than my co's strict guidelines.

Have any of you come across anything particularly wild in either direction?

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CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Nothing crazy here. Now in my pharma days I had to spend a min of $10k a month or be written up.

UserNotFound

Politicker

Account Executive

I would have a heart attack.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

I'm having flashbacks to Brewster's Millions.

finboi

Notorious Answer

Fi-nance

What would you spend that on besides travel and meals with clients?

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Speaker fees, event rentals, etc. Also doctors can DRANK.

finboi

Notorious Answer

Fi-nance

Ohhhh yeah once you are putting in events that racks up

ThatNewAE

Big Shot

Account Executive - Mid enterprise

*Panics in panic*.

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

Sales Rep

Damn!

Xthanthus

Good Citizen

Professional Territory Manager

I’m in pharma now, those days are LONG gone…

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

Never had anything wild.

I have a company card now, and no real policy, but I'm not an idiot and don't meet often with clients...

Mostly for software, conferences, and team stuff.

I did love the months at an older job where I'd have multiple flights and rack up points on my personal card though. Made it a lot easier to ball out at some hotels for my wedding/honeymoon.

antiASKHOLE

Tycoon

Bravado's Resident Asshole

We don't get expenses as normal AEs at my co. But when I get over to the strategic side(fingers crossed) I will have the opp to figure that piece out.

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

You'll get there.

GTMLeader

Good Citizen

GTM Leader

One extreme, $50K limit on a company credit card. No expense reports needed, just spend and the company paid the card. On the other end, another company would calculate tips at 15%, anything over that would be deducted from the expense check and they would also use Mapquest for mileage. Anything mileage that went over the Mapquest mileage would be deducted, even if you went out for dinner, that was excluded.

finboi

Notorious Answer

Fi-nance

God what I wouldn’t give to not have to do expense reports

GTMLeader

Good Citizen

GTM Leader

Not having to do an expense report ended shortly after we received our Series A. It was fun for the year while it lasted.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Preach finboi. Preach.

UserNotFound

Politicker

Account Executive

My current role is the first time where I’ve had a company AmEx… my expense reports are usually 300-1000/mo. Nothing crazy- but then again most of my DMs are individual with no committee input so lunches, dinners and treats aren’t as expensive.

LightingLeader

Politicker

Specification Sales

Mine is pretty normal. If they want me to go on a trip I can expense it. Monthly expenses are around $500-$1,000 if not involved a trip

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

my favorite story is of my brother in law. he is a consultant.

He travels every other week for 1 week at a time. Every day he is traveling he gets $150 a DAY for food.....in CASH. idk how that worked.

and what ever he didnt spent he just KEPT.

so as you can imagine he saved up quite a bit of cash.

This is the complete opposite for when I was a manager in financial services, we had to PAY $50 a month to pay for food and drinks for the team when we did events. that SUCKED.

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

Cash per diem? Oh man, I'd love THAT.

Book a hotel room with a kitchenette and hit the grocery store. I had a BBQ on my balcony at a hotel near Banff for a conference once.

finboi

Notorious Answer

Fi-nance

That stacks up fast!

Diablo

Politicker

Sr. AE

We don’t have any budget but we can expense whenever we are out to meet a prospect/client. Just have to let our manager know in advance.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Nothing outrageous here, either. Had my corp Amex at my last role. I could have one here, but I'm just using my own card and getting reimbursed. We do have guidelines for expenditure/day on an individual expenses (meals, etc) and receipts required even for small things (starting at $15).

My last company had Google Maps embedded in the Concur instance to calculate mileage, which was actually really nice!

finboi

Notorious Answer

Fi-nance

Hate receipts

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Gurl me tooooo

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Or when your taxi driver wants to do it "under the table" and doesn't have receipts ... yeah right. Sigh.

(Uber and Lyft waaaaaay more expensive, don't judge me)

Wellss

Tycoon

Channel sales

Nothing crazy in my current role since we're all remote. Any time we do go on a company trip, the company basically books everything for us.

At my previous company, we had certain amounts that we could spend on each meal. I don't remember exactly but I think breakfast was $15, lunch $20, and dinner $35. Was actually pretty nice when I would be traveling a lot to not have to eat super cheap dinners all the time

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Those are super cheap at an airport. ;)

WhoDey

Opinionated

VP of Sales

Our policies are pretty tight. Must be a valid reason for entertaining, must list all attendees, must provide itemized receipt (not just the credit card receipt with the total), Must be submitted within 45 days.

Arzola

Valued Contributor

Business administration

class="Apple-interchange-newline">The craziest thing was a 100K petty cash that doesn't require an explanation or invoices... as you can imagine it lasted 2 months haha

BourbonKing

Valued Contributor

VP of Sales

Pre-IPO: wild, wild west
Post-IPO: strict guidelines, limits, and oversight [sigh]

Xthanthus

Good Citizen

Professional Territory Manager

Having to follow a $65 /day per diem during overnights in NYC is rather brutal… I always overshoot it.

JMSwiggidy

Politicker

Enterprise Account Executive

Depends on travel…. But typically traveling 20-30% of the year. Some months I easily rack up 10-15K, others 2-5K.

No real rules, just the standard stuff, don’t be dumb, etc.

CryptoPoor

Opinionated

Account Executive

Not sure if it counts as expenses, but I have a car allowance of 450/month regardless of my travel. They also gave me a corp Amex, but I'm trying to push back and simply use my card and expense it.

Never really understood the whole thing with Amex and corp card, especially here in Canada. Amex isn't accepted everywhere, and the further you go from big city centers, the less it is accepted so you end up expensing it through your personal card anyway

BlueJays2591

Politicker

Federal Business Dev Director

Nothing wild but we didn't really have guidelines in my first sales job and I didn't have to turn in receipts. Just a screen shot on the line item off the bank statement would do. It's why I would travel to DC and drink expensive scotch with clients.

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finboi

Most wild expense policies (in either direction)

35 comments

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