Expense Prepaid Hotel and AMEX card

[sswan175]

I will relocate back to US in a month.  I booked my temporary stay through Airbnb.  I prepaid my booking (I have to).  My issue is that Airbnb already charged my AMEX card, but I cannot expense future dates in Concur.   If I expense next month, my AMEX card will be overdue and I need to pay late fee.  Why can I do to avoid late fee in my situation?   Thank you in advance for help.

[Nancyagfa · Accepted solution]

I would think the lodging should be submitted in the month it was expensed with a comment that it is prepaid and for the dates, which would also be on the report.  This was it is itemized correctly and not as misc.  It's the same when you buy airfare at the end of the month for the following month.  You still submit the expense in the month it was incurred, not wait until after you complete your travel.  This also occurs when a hotel charges a night's deposit before your trip.  We have a standard rule that all expenses on your corp card billing statement have to be submitted in the month incurred unless being disputed.

[Munari_alEXPert]

dear @sswan175 

Effectively it is not possible to expense items with future date, however it would be highly recommended you submit the expense on time to avoid late payment charges. I am not sure the list of expenses you have within your organization, but I would include those on "Miscellaneous" OR "Others" or something you need to include a comment for explanations. I will provide an example which I hope it helps.  

- Booking on Airbnb 200 USD ON 1st May;

- Staying in premises 1st June to 3rd June.

- Extra charges after staying 100 USD on 3rd June.

Concur expense to submit today:

"Miscellaneous" expense  dated 1st May on credit card transaction 200 USD.

Concur expense to submit in June:

- Hotel to itemize dated 3rd June on Credit card --> 100 USD and how best to itemize?

Hotel Lodging per night 150 USD (150*2 =300)

Miscellaneous dated 1st May - 200 USD (menus 200 USD which balance the total amount transaction to 100 USD)

This would close your pre-booking Miscellaneous expense, and itemize the lodging properly. 

I hope is clearer and make sense.

[Nancyagfa · Accepted solution]

I would think the lodging should be submitted in the month it was expensed with a comment that it is prepaid and for the dates, which would also be on the report.  This was it is itemized correctly and not as misc.  It's the same when you buy airfare at the end of the month for the following month.  You still submit the expense in the month it was incurred, not wait until after you complete your travel.  This also occurs when a hotel charges a night's deposit before your trip.  We have a standard rule that all expenses on your corp card billing statement have to be submitted in the month incurred unless being disputed.

[KevinD · Accepted solution]

@Nancyagfa I agree with you, however I think the issue is the itemization requirement since it would be considered a hotel expense. @sswan175 will not be able to submit the check-in and check-out dates when itemizing since the dates are in the future. 

@sswan175 one piece of advice I like to give for situations like these are to ask your direct manager what you should do since the system blocks future dates. A possible workaround you could ask your manager is if you could just submit the charge as a hotel expense but put the check-in date as the date of the charge and the check-out date as the next day. So, enter a 1-day stay and enter the itemization for that day as the total amount of the charge. Use the comments field to explain it was a pre-paid expense. Ask your manager if they think this will be acceptable or not though before doing it. Your company might not have any written policy on this exact situation, so it is best to ask first and see if there is a way your manager would like this handled. Just a suggestion for you. 

[sswan175]

I first got my manager approved to let me enter total charge of two-week stay as one-day charge with details of exact daily rate and tax as shown in the receipt.   I then submitted my expense report and got approved by both auditor and my manager today.  I guess  it may be just on time to avoid late payment.

Thank you all!

[Nancyagfa]

@KevinD - I agree with your answer for the one day showing the rate and taxes with a comment for the real dates.  We have another lodging expense type - In Lieu of Lodging - which we use for among other types of lodging expenses, hotel deposits.  We then itemize the rates and taxes (when nec) in this expense type with comments as to when the event is actually taking place.

[KevinD]

@Nancyagfa I like that solution to have a dedicated expense type for these types of situations. Keep up the good responses here on the forum. We really appreciate your input. 

[sswan175]

Thank you all for providing suggestions.   I have talked to my manager and tried all possibilities.   The issue has not been resolved because I simply could not submit my expense report even my manage gave "go ahead " to submit.  The error messages from Concur are :

1. I skip itemize to void enter future dates, but got this "this report cannot be submitted because one or more entries must be itemized".   

2. If I itemized the dates , and got "This report has one or more exceptions. Resolve the exceptions before submit the report". 

As I could not submit expense report, auditor will not be able to read my explanation in "comments" space.

[KevinD]

@sswan175 I sent you a private message here on the Community. If you could check it and reply, that would be great. 

[crtyner1]

@sswan175 and @KevinD I created an expense type called Hotel Deposits. I would suggest you have your company look into this as well. I did not require itemizations for this expense type category and you'd put the date you purchased the hotel in the date box. The receipt (or hotel reservation) would be attached so the details can be seen in that manner. Hope it helps!