vent - Dealing with a co-worker

[It'sWDW4me]

I work the accounts payable department of a large company. I specifically work on employee expense reports. Boy, oh, boy have I seen it all now.

About a month ago, employee A came to me asking why I wasn't paying his expense reports. Cuz I don't have any for him. I let him know that, unless he forwards the confirmation number of his report to me, I have absolutely no way of knowing that anything is due to him. I can't look up open reports by name, I have to have the conf number. Ok, he tells me he'll get me copies of the reports and he goes away.

Now I have copies of his reports but they're all waiting for his manager's stamp of approval to pay plus the receipts for the reports were sent with the original reports. Where were they sent? Who knows. Employee says he sent them to manager, manager says he sent them to AP, they're not here. My system is set up so that there is no way for me to "lose" an expense report once I receive it. The system was set up by the woman I replaced (late April of this year) and it worked so well for her that I didn't want to mess with greatness. So this may be a good time to add that some of these expense reports in question go back to April...... of 2009!!! 18, count 'em, 18 expense reports totalling about $2,500. Why, oh why, did this guy wait more than a year to ask why he's not been paid?!?

Sigh. Deep breath. Manager electronically approves the expense reports but we still have the issue of the missing receipts. While I'm sending an email to the manager requesting specific approval to pay in absence of receipts; manager insists he sent them and he can't understand why these expense reports keep coming back to him for approval because he knows he already approved them but yes, ok, pay them without receipts.... Employee A goes ahead and withdraws. his. expense. reports! WTH?!?!?

We're now back to square 1. Pending manager approval.

Manager was right - he's already approved at least one of these 3 times. Employee keeps withdrawing it and resubmitting it. All employee had to do was send a copy of the confirmation page to me and he would have gotten paid - probably weeks ago. Now we have to wait for the manager to get back from his business trip and re-approve the reports.

You. just. can't. fix. stupid!

4 days until I leave all this crap behind me for 10 glorious days!

 

[karibritt01]

Why does he keep withdrawing them? I believe I would have been in his office asking him why he is making your job so difficult. I would also consider a) time limits on reimbursement, and b) number of times a report can be submitted.

And the evil streak in me says to lose his paperwork until you return, and keep him on the hook that much longer.

 

[It'sWDW4me]

That's another thing - there ARE limits as to how many times a report can be resubmitted. He has one report that the system administrator now needs to "push" to the manager to get it approved.... again. I left a voicemail and then sent an email to the employee basically telling him that he's guaranteeing to never get paid if he keeps his expense reports in a constant state of "Pending Manager Approval"!

Once they're paid, he can't withdraw them anymore. I can imagine he'd try - "Oh, I haven't gotten the check yet... maybe I need to resubmit the report!"

The kicker for me is that I was all up in arms about the darned manager not approving or rejecting these reports. Now I find out the real reason is because the employee's a nimrod!

 

[Carly_Roach]

That's another thing - there ARE limits as to how many times a report can be resubmitted. He has one report that the system administrator now needs to "push" to the manager to get it approved.... again. I left a voicemail and then sent an email to the employee basically telling him that he's guaranteeing to never get paid if he keeps his expense reports in a constant state of "Pending Manager Approval"!

Once they're paid, he can't withdraw them anymore. I can imagine he'd try - "Oh, I haven't gotten the check yet... maybe I need to resubmit the report!"

The kicker for me is that I was all up in arms about the darned manager not approving or rejecting these reports. Now I find out the real reason is because the employee's a nimrod!

I have found that 9 times out of 10 this is the reason.

 

[scrapbookworm]

Could he be purposely trying to make the issue confusing, in order to get double paid?

 

[It'sWDW4me]

Could he be purposely trying to make the issue confusing, in order to get double paid?

That was one of my first thoughts - I'm really pretty cynical due to what I've seen people trying to get away with on their ER's (buying a copy of The Bourne Identity for in-flight entertainment; a walking "ghost tour" of New Orleans Both expenses were rejected). So I checked this year's and last year's expense reports paid to this guy. No double payments.

 

[karibritt01]

The kicker for me is that I was all up in arms about the darned manager not approving or rejecting these reports. Now I find out the real reason is because the employee's a nimrod!

I'd be darn sure the manager knows the reason they have had to approve the same report numerous times, and why the receipts have gotten lost.

Could he be purposely trying to make the issue confusing, in order to get double paid?

I'm thinking maybe there was something fishy in the reports that he is trying to hide. By submitting and then pulling them back out, he has managed to lose all the receipts. Makes me wonder if there were truly receipts for everything to begin with, and if they reflect the value on the report.

 

[Hillbeans]

I work the accounts payable department of a large company. I specifically work on employee expense reports. Boy, oh, boy have I seen it all now.

About a month ago, employee A came to me asking why I wasn't paying his expense reports. Cuz I don't have any for him. I let him know that, unless he forwards the confirmation number of his report to me, I have absolutely no way of knowing that anything is due to him. I can't look up open reports by name, I have to have the conf number. Ok, he tells me he'll get me copies of the reports and he goes away.

Now I have copies of his reports but they're all waiting for his manager's stamp of approval to pay plus the receipts for the reports were sent with the original reports. Where were they sent? Who knows. Employee says he sent them to manager, manager says he sent them to AP, they're not here. My system is set up so that there is no way for me to "lose" an expense report once I receive it. The system was set up by the woman I replaced (late April of this year) and it worked so well for her that I didn't want to mess with greatness. So this may be a good time to add that some of these expense reports in question go back to April...... of 2009!!! 18, count 'em, 18 expense reports totalling about $2,500. Why, oh why, did this guy wait more than a year to ask why he's not been paid?!?

Sigh. Deep breath. Manager electronically approves the expense reports but we still have the issue of the missing receipts. While I'm sending an email to the manager requesting specific approval to pay in absence of receipts; manager insists he sent them and he can't understand why these expense reports keep coming back to him for approval because he knows he already approved them but yes, ok, pay them without receipts.... Employee A goes ahead and withdraws. his. expense. reports! WTH?!?!?

We're now back to square 1. Pending manager approval.

Manager was right - he's already approved at least one of these 3 times. Employee keeps withdrawing it and resubmitting it. All employee had to do was send a copy of the confirmation page to me and he would have gotten paid - probably weeks ago. Now we have to wait for the manager to get back from his business trip and re-approve the reports.

You. just. can't. fix. stupid!

4 days until I leave all this crap behind me for 10 glorious days!

Boy does this bring back memories...I was an Admin last year on a Contract assignment and I dealt with this stuff day in and day out. I had one problem offender who submitted numerous incomplete reports and blamed me for the mistakes when I wasn't even employed with the company yet. He had lost almost every receipt or gave me receipts for things not even on his report. Honestly, it's not rocket science, they need to hold receipts and submit them in a timely manner.

 

[It'sWDW4me]

Yeah, I hear ya! About $1k of meal and lodging charges with no receipts. But that covers periods from early April 2009 through late July 2010 so it's really not that excessive. His manager is willing to absorb the charges in the departmental budget so, meh, whatever. From what I hear, though, the contents of his manager's office is a hoarder's dream-palace. For all I know, the receipts are somewhere in the piles and piles and piles (and piles) of paperwork.

 

[barkley]

i had a co-worker purposely do this in order to make it look like her work expenses were higher and her income was lower for purposes of receiving spousal and child support.

 

[bored]

At my company if you don't submit it within 6 months you don't get reimbursed!

 

[WDWorBUST]

Although I appreciate your frustration I have been dealing with the other side of the coin since last September. DH was sent on a business trip. He gets back and submits his expense report. His manager approves it and we wait. A couple of weeks go by and he checks on it and his boss says submit it again, which he does. We wait. He has followed up with his boss and they together have went to the supervisor above him. To date we are STILL waiting on this expense report. It was a very cut and dry expense report - hotel, mileage, and food - nothing out of the extremely ordinary. He has finally contacted the Regional VP about it and she is supposed to be getting it taken care of. So we have since went through Christmas and 7 months of 2010 with a baby due in November trying to get reimbursed for $700. It's not a lot of money to some people, but it would have definitely come in handy at Christmas...and now for getting the last of what we need for baby. And it is a lot of money to me.....especially when you consider it was for the "privilege" of working for the company and being away from his family for a week. I don't mind him traveling for work....it's part of the job. But I do mind having to wait 10+ months to get reimbursed.

 

[diznygirl]

Yeah, I hear ya! About $1k of meal and lodging charges with no receipts. But that covers periods from early April 2009 through late July 2010 so it's really not that excessive. His manager is willing to absorb the charges in the departmental budget so, meh, whatever. From what I hear, though, the contents of his manager's office is a hoarder's dream-palace. For all I know, the receipts are somewhere in the piles and piles and piles (and piles) of paperwork.

I was an admin for a manager like this. I would wait until he left and then go in his office and find whatever was currently "missing."

It's probably in there somewhere and he knows it - but doesn't want to look for it.

 

[scrapquitler]

Although I appreciate your frustration I have been dealing with the other side of the coin since last September. DH was sent on a business trip. He gets back and submits his expense report. His manager approves it and we wait. A couple of weeks go by and he checks on it and his boss says submit it again, which he does. We wait. He has followed up with his boss and they together have went to the supervisor above him. To date we are STILL waiting on this expense report. It was a very cut and dry expense report - hotel, mileage, and food - nothing out of the extremely ordinary. He has finally contacted the Regional VP about it and she is supposed to be getting it taken care of. So we have since went through Christmas and 7 months of 2010 with a baby due in November trying to get reimbursed for $700. It's not a lot of money to some people, but it would have definitely come in handy at Christmas...and now for getting the last of what we need for baby. And it is a lot of money to me.....especially when you consider it was for the "privilege" of working for the company and being away from his family for a week. I don't mind him traveling for work....it's part of the job. But I do mind having to wait 10+ months to get reimbursed.

We had the same kind of problem with my husband getting reimbursed. It was a $7500 trip to a client in London (the client insisted on first class full fare airline tickets, a $400 a night hotel, car service to and from Boston airport, citing their corporate policy of only using preapproved vendors). My husband was a subcontractor, and we had to pay for the trip out of pocket. We bought the plane tickets in Dec 2007. The trip was in early Feb. 2008. We resubmitted the receipts and everything FOUR times and each time, the agency where DH worked lost the paperwork. Then they told us they were having trouble getting the client to pay (the client had to pay them, then they would pay DH). Then eventually they told us the expenses were too old and they wouldn't reimburse them (which of course was THEIR fault they lost the paperwork multiple times). Oh, and then the payroll lady from the agency called me screaming at me telling me I had to resubmit the paperwork AGAIN, but it had to be THAT DAY, and I has standing in the middle of Epcot that day, and that day happened to be in September 2008!! Finally in NOVEMBER 2008 we got reimbursed!

So its not always only a nightmare on the corporate side, sometimes the person trying to get reimbursed is suffering...we had all that money out of pocket for nearly a YEAR.

 

[WDWorBUST]

We had the same kind of problem with my husband getting reimbursed. It was a $7500 trip to a client in London (the client insisted on first class full fare airline tickets, a $400 a night hotel, car service to and from Boston airport, citing their corporate policy of only using preapproved vendors). My husband was a subcontractor, and we had to pay for the trip out of pocket. We bought the plane tickets in Dec 2007. The trip was in early Feb. 2008. We resubmitted the receipts and everything FOUR times and each time, the agency where DH worked lost the paperwork. Then they told us they were having trouble getting the client to pay (the client had to pay them, then they would pay DH). Then eventually they told us the expenses were too old and they wouldn't reimburse them (which of course was THEIR fault they lost the paperwork multiple times). Oh, and then the payroll lady from the agency called me screaming at me telling me I had to resubmit the paperwork AGAIN, but it had to be THAT DAY, and I has standing in the middle of Epcot that day, and that day happened to be in September 2008!! Finally in NOVEMBER 2008 we got reimbursed!

So its not always only a nightmare on the corporate side, sometimes the person trying to get reimbursed is suffering...we had all that money out of pocket for nearly a YEAR.

I'm so sorry you went through all that. I think I'm just spoiled by working for an absolutely amazing company. We issue checks every Thursday. I have never had to wait on reimbursement longer than a week. Our accounting department has it together - like it sounds like the OP does - and fortunately our managers do too.

 

[Pakey]

We all have company credit cards here. I think it's ridiculous to expect an employee to pay OOP for business expenses and then have to wait for the company to get their ducks in a row to get reimbursed.

 

[It'sWDW4me]

Although I appreciate your frustration I have been dealing with the other side of the coin since last September. DH was sent on a business trip. He gets back and submits his expense report. His manager approves it and we wait. A couple of weeks go by and he checks on it and his boss says submit it again, which he does. We wait. He has followed up with his boss and they together have went to the supervisor above him. To date we are STILL waiting on this expense report. It was a very cut and dry expense report - hotel, mileage, and food - nothing out of the extremely ordinary. He has finally contacted the Regional VP about it and she is supposed to be getting it taken care of. So we have since went through Christmas and 7 months of 2010 with a baby due in November trying to get reimbursed for $700. It's not a lot of money to some people, but it would have definitely come in handy at Christmas...and now for getting the last of what we need for baby. And it is a lot of money to me.....especially when you consider it was for the "privilege" of working for the company and being away from his family for a week. I don't mind him traveling for work....it's part of the job. But I do mind having to wait 10+ months to get reimbursed.

$700 IS a lot of money. How horrible that you went through that.

We cut checks/run direct deposit batches every Thursday. Our policy is that if it's in my in-box by end-of-day Tuesday, you either get paid that week or you get an email telling you what the issue is with your expense report and what I need you to do to fix it to get paid next week. Of course, my in-bin overfloweth on Mondays and, especially, on Tuesdays! I love the people who come to me on Thursday morning as I'm finishing up auditing Tuesday's mail and expect me to drop everything because their CC bill is due on Monday. Ugh!

 

[It'sWDW4me]

We all have company credit cards here. I think it's ridiculous to expect an employee to pay OOP for business expenses and then have to wait for the company to get their ducks in a row to get reimbursed.

Yeah, we have company credit cards here too. They're in the employee's name (saves on problems with personal charges coming through on the corporate dime, let me tell you) and any airline charges - including baggage and flight change fees - are swept out and centrally billed to the company. So, theoretically, if the employee uses their corporate card for hotel, meals, rental car, etc, etc, AND the employee submitted their expense report as soon as they got back from a business trip, they would get their reimbursement before the credit card payment was even due. Theoretically. In a perfect world.

 

[traviesojmt]

Several years ago, I worked HR for a large staffing company. Payroll was not handled on-site so when someone had pay issues that came to me. I had an employee come into my office furious because he had not been paid. So, I look up his info and see that he had signed up for direct deposit and his deposit was sent on time as usual. He then informs me that he had cancelled his checking account. Hmm, now how in the name of all that is good did he expect me to just know that? I tried to explain to him that there was no way we could have known that his checking account was closed and that we do not have the ability to change his pay status without permission anyway. Of course, when I call payroll they tell him that he will now have to wait until the bank sends the money back to us and then we can issue him a check. He was beyond furious. He began yelling and screaming. My asst. was sitting by the phone with mace in one hand and ready to dial 911 with the other. I honestly spent 20 minutes trying to get him to understand that we did pay him but that HE closed the account that HE had told us he wanted his money sent to. It was like beating my head against wall.

 

[LilyWDW]

Several years ago, I worked HR for a large staffing company. Payroll was not handled on-site so when someone had pay issues that came to me. I had an employee come into my office furious because he had not been paid. So, I look up his info and see that he had signed up for direct deposit and his deposit was sent on time as usual. He then informs me that he had cancelled his checking account. Hmm, now how in the name of all that is good did he expect me to just know that? I tried to explain to him that there was no way we could have known that his checking account was closed and that we do not have the ability to change his pay status without permission anyway. Of course, when I call payroll they tell him that he will now have to wait until the bank sends the money back to us and then we can issue him a check. He was beyond furious. He began yelling and screaming. My asst. was sitting by the phone with mace in one hand and ready to dial 911 with the other. I honestly spent 20 minutes trying to get him to understand that we did pay him but that HE closed the account that HE had told us he wanted his money sent to. It was liking beating my head against wall.

You would have had better luck actually beating your head against the wall. At least then you would have knocked yourself out and you wouldn't have had to listen to him...

OP, I'm sorry you have to deal with this. It's pretty obvious that this person just isn't the sharpest crayon in the box. Hopefully things will get worked out so you can send them on their happy way and you can be done with it... well, until next time.