Expenses

[Nicola Gorringe]

We now have most staff working from home. They are using their printers (ink and paper) when working but obviously it's not just for work, it's also for work they do for other people and personal work. What is the position re. expenses?

 

[mattk]

The easiest options are to either pay them 6 quid a week to cover their expenses or alternatively tell them to deduct their expenses from what they are saving by not commuting into the office.

 

[Nicola Gorringe]

The easiest options are to either pay them 6 quid a week to cover their expenses or alternatively tell them to deduct their expenses from what they are saving by not commuting into the office.

It becomes very problematic because, as you say, they are saving by not commuting and we are allowing them to work from home purely because it is for their peace of mind/convenience. Our office is open and we are happy for them to come into the office. Also they are each working for another employer, plus they use the printer for personal. It's awkward because it's family.

 

[LanceUk]

If you are worried about ink only, then it should be a case of estimating the usage for you and paying them accordingly... unf each employee is likely to have diferent printers with different ink consumption (e.g. some colour printers won't do B&W only).. So the payment suggested above of £6/week may be the best way. However, if the are part time and only printing a couple of pages a week, and you have enough employees and your revenue/profits have dropped duriung COVID, £6/week may be taking the yellow fluid.

If you're talking about their out of pocket expenses as a whole, then its a different ball game. Agreed you have the office open and allow them to come to work, and assuming you and they aren't in a heavier tiered lockdown, the government is still recommending people work form home unless they have to be at the workplace to do their job. So, unf, especially if you have more COVID-vulnerable employees, it aint going to be easy to say just come to work.

Because this is a government edict, though, I think it is perfectly reasonabe to include the forgone cost of commuting as well as the other benefits (e.g. an extra 2 hours in their day if it is a 1 hour commute), and offset that against the increased cost to the employee. This will be ink, as well as wear and tear on their personal equipment, as well as additional heating, light, etc.

If they normally use public transport, it is easy to calculate; if they use a car, the best proxy I can think of is either the 40p or 26p/mile allowance by HMRC for reclaiming busines travel when using personal vehicles.

A factor will be employee welfare as well.. do they have the ergonomic seats at home, do they have to crampen up their house to work from home, etc.. These can all play on morale and productivity as well, so althougbh you may want to deduct commute costs, it may not be worth it in the long run (unless you communicate the reason for it - tight business environment etc that could mean the difference between simply not being fully reimbuirsed, or not having a salary from you).

The fact they work for someone else should not make a difference on the direct cost they are incuring for you, but if thinking about reimbursement for wear and tear, loss of home amenity, obviously you would think about not subsidising their opther employer.

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

We now have most staff working from home. They are using their printers (ink and paper) when working but obviously it's not just for work, it's also for work they do for other people and personal work. What is the position re. expenses?

Have you discussed it with your employees? It's a hard time for everyone and little things like that can cause unnecessary bad feeling. Presumably you normally buy in your own paper and ink. Can you not give each employee a stock of paper and ink?

 

[Newchodge]

The £6 per week is for additional heating, lighting costs of the physical workplace. It is not intended to cover paper and ink, although it should cover the cost of running the computer and printer. If I had to supply my employer with even a small amount of paper and ink I would resent it. You need to hold a discussion and come to a reasonable amount, depending on circumstances.

 

[Newchodge]

If you are worried about ink only, then it should be a case of estimating the usage for you and paying them accordingly... unf each employee is likely to have diferent printers with different ink consumption (e.g. some colour printers won't do B&W only).. So the payment suggested above of £6/week may be the best way. However, if the are part time and only printing a couple of pages a week, and you have enough employees and your revenue/profits have dropped duriung COVID, £6/week may be taking the yellow fluid.

If you're talking about their out of pocket expenses as a whole, then its a different ball game. Agreed you have the office open and allow them to come to work, and assuming you and they aren't in a heavier tiered lockdown, the government is still recommending people work form home unless they have to be at the workplace to do their job. So, unf, especially if you have more COVID-vulnerable employees, it aint going to be easy to say just come to work.

Because this is a government edict, though, I think it is perfectly reasonabe to include the forgone cost of commuting as well as the other benefits (e.g. an extra 2 hours in their day if it is a 1 hour commute), and offset that against the increased cost to the employee. This will be ink, as well as wear and tear on their personal equipment, as well as additional heating, light, etc.

If they normally use public transport, it is easy to calculate; if they use a car, the best proxy I can think of is either the 40p or 26p/mile allowance by HMRC for reclaiming busines travel when using personal vehicles.

A factor will be employee welfare as well.. do they have the ergonomic seats at home, do they have to crampen up their house to work from home, etc.. These can all play on morale and productivity as well, so althougbh you may want to deduct commute costs, it may not be worth it in the long run (unless you communicate the reason for it - tight business environment etc that could mean the difference between simply not being fully reimbuirsed, or not having a salary from you).

The fact they work for someone else should not make a difference on the direct cost they are incuring for you, but if thinking about reimbursement for wear and tear, loss of home amenity, obviously you would think about not subsidising their opther employer.

What does 'unf' mean?

Some employees may have saved 2 hours per day commuting others may have saved 10 minutes. Frankly I do not think that is something the employer should take into account - the employer witht he longer commute does not get any additional pay when they travel to work. Savings on travel costs will also vary enormously. Again, though, unless the employer normally pays those, it is none of their business.

 

[Nicola Gorringe]

As mentioned it is a hard time for everyone. We supply the hospitality trade and our business was nearly gone during lockdown. None of our employees are currently subject to shielding but because it is a worrying time, they would prefer to work from home. We have accommodated that by purchasing and supplying them all with laptops, although our office is empty because they all work different days, so there is no social distancing concerns. I have no problem whatsoever in reimbursing their expenses but I need them to work out those expenses. The issue is that both employees are casual workers, each working for other employers. I am more than happy to reimburse for our costs, but obviously not another company's costs. We have never had to do this before because, as you say, our office is fully equipped so I am new to this type of expense.

 

[simon field]

Can’t you make a decent enough estimate on number of pages printed?

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

As mentioned it is a hard time for everyone. We supply the hospitality trade and our business was nearly gone during lockdown. None of our employees are currently subject to shielding but because it is a worrying time, they would prefer to work from home. We have accommodated that by purchasing and supplying them all with laptops, although our office is empty because they all work different days, so there is no social distancing concerns. I have no problem whatsoever in reimbursing their expenses but I need them to work out those expenses. The issue is that both employees are casual workers, each working for other employers. I am more than happy to reimburse for our costs, but obviously not another company's costs. We have never had to do this before because, as you say, our office is fully equipped so I am new to this type of expense.

That's exactly the conversation you need to have with them. It'll prevent you feeling you are paying for stationery for another employer, and the employees resenting you as their employer not paying for stationery they use whilst working for you.

 

[mattk]

Is six quid a week for two people really going to break the bank? If my employer asked me to account for each pieces of paper I printed work related content on so they could pay my expenses, I wouldn't both, but I would feel resentment at their penny pinching.

 

[Nicola Gorringe]

I'm not asking them to account for each piece of paper! I simply asked a question as this is new territory for us and whilst we are HAPPY to reimburse their expenses, we also need to know we are not reimburse for someone else's!

 

[Nicola Gorringe]

Can’t you make a decent enough estimate on number of pages printed?

Yes I could do it that way. All I was after was a fair and decent way to calculate their expenses.

 

[Newchodge]

Yes I could do it that way. All I was after was a fair and decent way to calculate their expenses.

There isn't one, the matter is too variable. And the way you have framed your question comes across as if you are worried about paying for 10 sheets of paper that someone else should pay for.

Talk to your staff and agree something that works for you both.

 

[Nicola Gorringe]

There isn't one, the matter is too variable. And the way you have framed your question comes across as if you are worried about paying for 10 sheets of paper that someone else should pay for.

Talk to your staff and agree something that works for you both.

Forgive me, I thought this was a space to ask questions and get appropriate answers, not peoples opinions.

 

[Nicola Gorringe]

Forgive me, I thought this was a space to ask questions and get appropriate answers, not peoples opinions.

And incidentally I have spoken to the staff.

 

[simon field]

And incidentally I have spoken to the staff.

What did they say?

 

[Nicola Gorringe]

What did they say?

They said "well we'll just let you know when we run out of paper", then "don't worry about it, it's impossible to work out how much we're using for each employer". All I'm trying to do is work things out in a fair way and because I've not come across this up to now, I've come here to ask advice (as in official guidance) but people seem to want to make assumptions that I'm a penny pincher.

Anyhoo, I've read enough so I'll sign off here.

 

[simon field]

Ok then.

My advice would be to just give them the £6 and be done with it.

Good luck

 

[Scalloway]

My advice would be to just give them the £6 and be done with it.

Unless they are going to count each sheet as they use them I can't think of a fairer method.

 

[paulears]

I don't get this - if you ask your staff to use their own domestic printer (which could even have a maximum page count, before it becomes land fill) then you replace their ink, and pay for the paper. I can't imagine people at home suddenly printing hundreds of pages, so if they print two or three sheets, it's silly to try to add this in. If they're dodgy enough to get you to put an extra few print cartridges on the shelf, and have a pack of paper for the grandkids - they're probably not that good an employee anyway?

If they put a claim in for a few cartridges and paper - if it sounds reasonable, just pay it. Just think of the amount of loo paper you're saving - that's probably offsetting the ink!

 

[Mr D]

Forgive me, I thought this was a space to ask questions and get appropriate answers, not peoples opinions.

Of course you got opinions.
This is what is known as a forum. Some questions have nice simple easily understood answers that can be referenced with a link to a government website that explains everything nicely.

Some questions do not have such nice easy answers. And you get replies based on people's experiences in their own business or what they have seen in other businesses.

 

[LanceUk]

What does 'unf' mean?

Some employees may have saved 2 hours per day commuting others may have saved 10 minutes. Frankly I do not think that is something the employer should take into account - the employer witht he longer commute does not get any additional pay when they travel to work. Savings on travel costs will also vary enormously. Again, though, unless the employer normally pays those, it is none of their business.

You're quite correct - the employee with the longer commute does not get additional pay. So say it costs them £10/day to commute and the employee with a shorter commute £1/day to commute, assuming the same salary,the longer commute person would be netting (after commute costs) £9/day less. If you deduct £10/day from their additional expenses you are reimbursing is not unreasonable - they are no worse off and they are not suddenly gaining from an unf (unfortunate) set of ciurcumstances outside the control of the employer. Of course, if you are going to do this, you should be consistent and deduct £1/day off the other.

I think it is reasonable to take individuals circumstances into account - if the situation warrants it. Admittedly, I could have made it clearer as, this is what I wrote: "so although you may want to deduct commute costs, it may not be worth it in the long run (unless you communicate the reason for it - tight business environment etc that could mean the difference between simply not being fully reimbuirsed, or not having a salary from you)."

I probably should have worded it something like, "your employees may be mightily peeved if you could afford it and was just being stingy, but if the difference means you can save their job and you explain the circumstances, then they may be more understanding." - to be more clear. I personally wouldn't try it on unless I absolutely needed to... but that doesn't mean it isn't reasonable not too...

 

[Nico Albrecht]

You could easily solve this problem by installing a print monitoring software on your business supplied laptops such as https://www.papercut.com/products/free-software/print-logger/. If they are business supplied laptops they should be setup with standard user accounts anyway and no admin rights. Trust me IT best practice to do so. Once the software is installed advise staff what it does and work out a cost model that works for both parties. Also printing at home must be a gdpr nightmare all that data now floating around. Any chance you could setup Google cloud print and they print directly to your office and it gets posted from there.

 

[paulears]

The GDPR snoops must be going mad imagining all the personal data now visible to the families and friends and builders and all and sundry. I'd not thought about that.

 

[ecommerce84]

How are commuting costs getting lumped in to offset printing costs?

In every job I’ve ever known commuting is a cost to the employee and printing costs are a cost to the business, you don’t just offset one with the other.

I’d argue it’s absolutely possible to separate what is printed from each employer.

If it were me, I’d set a cost of printing per page (based on the model of printer, the pence per page is easy to find online) and ask them to keep a track of how many pages they are printing for me and let me know at the end of the month for reimbursement.

 

[Nico Albrecht]

Wouldn't say going mad with gdpr but procedures put in place to at least minimise the data flow and show some care. That would include for business laptops encryption in place for hard drives, all USB ports blocked for data devices and if data is in the wild how to make sure to get it all back. Nothing really special but with a bit of careful planning the whole data exposure can be minimised without killing the bank.

 

[paulears]

Petrol money is a very good example. If you use your private car for business (ignoring the insurance minefield) it's no good going to the petrol station, filling up, doing the job then filling up again and charging this to your employer, is it? We know HMRC are very aware that the true cost of business mileage is more than the actual fuel, and there's even a rate - so my view is it's not just the cost of the paper and the ink, it's depreciation on the printer. At the moment some printers are less to purchase than new ink, while other people can have bigger photographic type ones that are very expensive. Other might have smaller laser printers, and a new drum can easily be over a hundred quid. If your employee prints at home, then pay them a fair amount and stick it down as you would have in the book keeping as you would have if it was for the office printer. Do people really scrutinise the office printing like this, in case somebody printed out 5 pages of stuff over lunch for themselves. I'm truly bewildered by bosses seeking to avoid what is basically petty cash amounts not worth the bother. If my boss asked me to detail how many sheets of paper I was using, I'd print TWO of each one and put them in the post for him to check.