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jocelynfleur
Routine Member - Level 1

Expensing Snacks

My company just started using "actuals" for meal reimbursements instead of a  daily Per Diem. We have been receiving  a lot of questions on whether snacks can be expensed. For example: 

 

"I was too busy and just grabbed a snack and soda from a vending machine, can I itemize the cost and use “vending machine” under vendor"?  

 

"Can I expense snacks that I bought at the airport such as water or coffee". 

 

If anybody can advise on this it would be super helpful. 

 

1 Solution
Solution
KevinD
Community Manager
Community Manager

@jocelynfleur here at Concur we have a daily meal limit we are not supposed to exceed. Our policy states that we can buy a meal, snacks, coffe, another meal, another snack, etc. as long as we stay under our limit for the day. Personally, I don't really buy snacks during the day when I travel, but if I did, I would probably categorize it as some type of individual meal. For example, I've gone to Starbucks just for coffee, but then later stopped somewhere else to get a breakfast sandwich. I categorized each as breakfast for that day. Since the total of these two combined was under the total I'm supposed to keep under for breakfast, Concur didn't care that I had two breakfast expenses for the same day. Also, as far as receipts go, we do not have to provide a receipt for an expense under $75 on our corporate card and under $25 for out of pocket. Since most individual meals are under $75, I don't have to provide receipts. 

 

Using Actuals is a bit different. In my experience most companies I've worked with didn't use Actuals, but rather just set either individual meal limits or daily meal total limit. The required receipt amount varies from company to company, but the most common amount I've seen for receipts to be required is $25. That goes for corp card and out of pocket expenses. 

 

Let me know if you have any other questions.


Thank you,
Kevin Dorsey
SAP Concur Community Manager
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View solution in original post

6 REPLIES 6
rward2
Occasional Member - Level 3

Hello @jocelynfleur ,

 

My suggestion would  be to go back to your Travel and Expense Policy and align your answers with the policy, if that is a possiblity. This answer is specific to your companies guidelines in that it depends on what expene types you have made availalbe for Meals and how you treat the "actuals." Our company does "actuals" as well and we have two expense types for Meals: Internal (Internal - used for business meals while traveling, working lunches, internal meetings) and External (External - used for business lunches where you are taking out a customer or vendor.) Our allowance is USD 70 for Internal per day while traveling and that has to include gratuity. We don't have an allowance on External because we leave it up to employees disgression depending on customer/vendor ROI and GP Dollars. The way we decided to regulated our employees spend is by giving an allowance of the USD 70 per DAY while on business and you can buy whatever you choose to while traveling as long as you stay under that amount including tips. If they are at the airport and grab gum, water and a bag of cashews that is their choice and they just deduct that amount from their allowance.

From my perspective as an Administrator I would get clear on how you want to train your employees to expense items that are edible but not necessarily a meal. If you previously had a per diem for meals and now they are doing actuals just retrain them to think of anything they buy for " food" as a meal. Again, this comes back to your policy in how you track spend that employees incur while eating/snacking on business trips.

 

To your specific example: "I was too busy and just grabbed a snack and soda from a vending machine, can I itemize the cost and use "Vending machine" under vendor?

Is the employee submitting this as an out-of-pocket expense as a "meal" and they would like to know in the expense detail field if they can write: Vending machine? If I were you this is how I would respond, "Thank you for your email. Our Travel Policy states that ______________________(whatever backs up the behavior you are encouraging) and you may submit that expense using the appropriate Vendor whom is  Canteen Vending Services (or whatever yours is) and this does go towards your daily allowance so just keep that in mind as you choose dinner and lunch today."

 

Your employees will need to reorganize in maintaining receipts as they adjust to the new demand to provide supporting documentation and relearn submitting claims for food or meals. There will be tons of questions, just stay consistent because they all talk to each other and share information and bring it back to the Policy.

The bottom line comes down to what do you want to "allow" employees to purchase and claim as a "meal."

I hope that helps you find the solution you are looking for to resolve pier diem vs actuals.

~Rosalie

jocelynfleur
Routine Member - Level 1

Thank you Rosalie. This is really helpful and gives me plenty to work with. I really appreciate you taking the time to respond. 

@jocelynfleur I'm going to second something Rosalie mentioned, Policy. Without an express written policy, you won't have a leg to stand on when/if you tell an employee that they cannot expense something in regards to food. Once you come up with the written policy, then I would either put in expense type limits and/or use Audit Rules to prevent employees from submitting actuals that are out of policy. 

 

Good luck. I know you'll come up with a good solution. Smiley LOL


Thank you,
Kevin Dorsey
SAP Concur Community Manager
Did this response answer your question? Be sure to select “Accept as Solution” so your fellow community members can be helped by it as well.
jocelynfleur
Routine Member - Level 1

Hi Kevin, 

 

Thanks for responding. 

 

We have a written policy and the change to our policy is going from a Per Diem to Actuals. We are getting lots of questions now that employees have to submit a request for individual meals. We are trying to provide guidance on how to handle smaller meals that aren't necessarily brought from a restaurant. 

 

What is Concur's policy regarding meals. 

Solution
KevinD
Community Manager
Community Manager

@jocelynfleur here at Concur we have a daily meal limit we are not supposed to exceed. Our policy states that we can buy a meal, snacks, coffe, another meal, another snack, etc. as long as we stay under our limit for the day. Personally, I don't really buy snacks during the day when I travel, but if I did, I would probably categorize it as some type of individual meal. For example, I've gone to Starbucks just for coffee, but then later stopped somewhere else to get a breakfast sandwich. I categorized each as breakfast for that day. Since the total of these two combined was under the total I'm supposed to keep under for breakfast, Concur didn't care that I had two breakfast expenses for the same day. Also, as far as receipts go, we do not have to provide a receipt for an expense under $75 on our corporate card and under $25 for out of pocket. Since most individual meals are under $75, I don't have to provide receipts. 

 

Using Actuals is a bit different. In my experience most companies I've worked with didn't use Actuals, but rather just set either individual meal limits or daily meal total limit. The required receipt amount varies from company to company, but the most common amount I've seen for receipts to be required is $25. That goes for corp card and out of pocket expenses. 

 

Let me know if you have any other questions.


Thank you,
Kevin Dorsey
SAP Concur Community Manager
Did this response answer your question? Be sure to select “Accept as Solution” so your fellow community members can be helped by it as well.
jocelynfleur
Routine Member - Level 1

Hi Kevin, 

 

Wow. This is super super helpful. Thank you so much for your guidance. I will definitely be able to use this a solution.