How can you better manage your employees' travel expenses?
Your employees often have to travel as part of their job. They incur costs in terms of mileage, subscriptions, tolls, insurance, meals and so on.
Expenses that add up and quickly become unmanageable, energy-consuming and irritating.
Let's take another look at this issue, which is often synonymous with a mental burden, to break down all the aspects and give you the keys to better management of mission expenses.
Background: what are mission expenses?
There are no mission expenses without a mission order.
The travel order is a document that you must give to your employee so that they can travel with the assurance that they will be covered in the event of an incident. Together with receipts for expenses incurred during the business trip, the employee can be reimbursed for business expenses on their return.
For a valid travel order, remember to indicate :
- The employee's identity,
- The name of your company,
- The location of the mission/travel,
- the duration,
- The means of transport used to get there.
To draw up an assignment order, you can use this model as a guide:
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Company name Date Subject: Mission order The company hereby entrusts (Surname, first name, address and position of the employee in the company) with the assignment of (purpose of the assignment). The purpose of this assignment is to (give precise reasons for the assignment). It will take place from (date of departure) to (date of return) and will therefore last (X days/month). The employee will be travelling between his (place of work/family residence) and the location of his assignment, at (address of the assignment). For the return journey, the employee will use the following means of transport (list here the means of transport used: plane, taxi, train, hire car, etc.). If possible, specify the times of the journeys, such as the departure and arrival times of a flight, for example). During the assignment, the employee will be staying at a place of accommodation. He will use (means of transport used) to travel between his place of residence and the location of his assignment. Signature of the employer or the person with delegated signing authority. |
Source : https://droit-finances.commentcamarche.com/
What expenses fall within the scope of business travel expenses?
All expenses relating to business travel by your teams are considered as mission expenses. This means everything from mileage costs to the meal budget, hotel nights and means of transport used during the trip.
You can set the budget for this mission with the employee before he or she leaves and specify it in detail in the mission order. However, this does not guarantee that the budget will be respected: many unforeseen events can occur during a business trip - whether they are suffered or chosen, for example: a cancelled flight necessitating the purchase of a new ticket or a bill in excess of the budget set at the restaurant, etc.
It's up to you to identify the employees you can trust to use the budget wisely.
What tools can be used to manage mission expenses?
We are well aware that mission expenses represent a major financial challenge, and a number of solutions exist to help you manage these business expenses as effectively as possible.
Most traditional banks now offer corporate payment cards, directly linked to the company's bank account.
In this way, employees do not have to advance any personal expenses on behalf of the company when they travel.
On the other hand, you have no direct control over the expenditure made with this card. Employees can use it wherever they like.
Other alternatives exist, such as special-purpose cards : the fuel card or the restaurant card. Although very widespread, these cards are restricted to specific areas of expenditure and can generally only be used in certain establishments. Some petrol cards, for example, can only be used in a single distribution network.
Restaurant cards are generally allocated a strict budget.
More geared towards business travel: the American Express or the Logée card are solutions for covering mission expenses. These deferred debit cards allow you to receive a single bill at the end of the month, specific to the trip made.
Another option that is still very widespread is the use of employees' personal bank cards. To be reimbursed for mission expenses, employees send their expense claims to the company's accounting department, which then sorts through the receipts.
Very often, this sorting of receipts is a tedious and time-consuming task. Worse still, receipts are sometimes lost, which lengthens or cancels the reimbursement process for the employee.
Mooncard has taken a close look at the mental burden that can be placed on employees who have to worry about expense claims. The fintech has developed an online manager linked to a Mastercard that helps to control and streamline business expenses. The bank card can be fully configured and expenses are transmitted in real timevia the manager, giving you a head start on managing business expenses!
Reclaiming VAT: the real challenge of business travel expenses
In order to reduce an employee's travel expenses as much as possible, companies can have the VAT on these expenses reimbursed (provided they have proof!).
💡 Good to know: for business expenses that belong to the "transport" family: train journeys, plane tickets, taxi fares, there is no VAT, so reclaiming it is impossible.
On the other hand, 20% VAT is charged on car park and toll charges, which can be reclaimed on the basis of receipts. The same applies to hotel costs: VAT generally varies between 10% and 20%.
VAT on meals is only refundable if the meal is a business lunch or if your employee is away on business. For day-to-day expenses linked to meals, use a restaurant card.
Three questions to Pierre-Yves Roizot, Financial Director at Mooncard
What are the main problems associated with mission expenses for management teams today?
Pierre-Yves Roizot:
Mission expenses, expense reports, travel costs. Whatever you call it, there's one common denominator: everyone involved is fed up. From the director who is afraid of discrepancies, to the manager who feels that he is wasting time on 'policing' with no added value, not to mention theFrom the director who is afraid of discrepancies, to the manager who feels that time is being wasted on 'policing' with no added value, to the user who no longer understands why they have to advance personal cash for business expenses, the hassle can be found at every level of the company.
When you add to this the extraordinary amount of time spent on accounting entries for these expenses, even though they are not the most significant in terms of amount, the cup is full.
And the icing on the cake? The risk of URSSAF and tax audits, which can make the bill even more expensive. Everyone is wasting time, the mental burden is taking its toll on everyone in the chain, and stress is spreading throughout the team.
Expense management: Many companies are used to sorting out their expense claims by hand. If there were three arguments to convince them to go digital, what would they be?
Pierre-Yves Roizot:
More than 80% of French companies still use a manual solution to manage their expense reports, based on Excel sheets that are more or less well printed, tickets whose ink has sometimes quickly faded (when they haven't disappeared along the way, in the case of a company with a large number of employees).If they haven't disappeared along the way, in the long administrative process imposed by this archaic process) and recalcitrant staplers (the famous 26/6 size that doesn't fit into 24/4... who hasn't already experienced this nightmare).
With digitisation, there's no more time wasted chasing after tickets, which are saved for several years (and therefore cannot be erased) thanks to a simple smartphone photo.No more sweat and stress when the URSSAF confirms that the erased ticket cannot be checked, and no more papers gathering dust in a storage area (and therefore incurring storage costs).
In 2020, wouldn't it be better to look ahead and envisage an interconnection with merchants, saving the forests that have already been largely cut down by no longer printing tickets? Let's save our planet: everyone's efforts, including in the management of expense accounts, are symbols of modernity and civic-mindedness that we owe to future generations.
Are employee meal expenses considered as mission expenses?
Pierre-Yves Roizot:
What sales director, financial manager or manager of an SME has never found themselves faced with this dilemma?
"Jean-Jacques, you spent €53 on your dinner on Tuesday, during your trip to Marseille, even though you knew that the maximum amount authorised for dinner was €39!
- Yes, but I'd had a sandwich for lunch!
Even if it seems obvious that meals constitute mission expenses, it is just as difficult to give them a simple, clear and effective framework. The exceptions are legion: to what extent is alcohol permitted? Can you invite your client and up to what limit?
As for the previous question, in 2020, wouldn't it be better to focus on constructive and positive reasoning? For example, how can you encourage your team to be reasonable in their spending? By transforming the constraint into a positive movement, a good number of questions disappear.
Some useful additional information:
- How can I reduce VAT on my purchases?
- Everything you need to know about VAT from Bercy Info
- Information on VAT from Service-Public.fr
Article translated from French