Boss Refuses Expense Claim Over 3p, Employee Costs Them £250

England, 2015. I was sent on a week long mandatory training course through work. I already knew the subject backwards but my boss wanted me to get the certificate to prove to upper management that his team was 100% certificated.

I was told that a train ticket would be booked, as would a hotel – Bed and Breakfast only. I’d have to pay for lunch and evening meals but I would be able to claim up to £5 per day for lunch and £11.72 per day for evening meals. It was a really strange value, but I could eat easily within that limit.

On the last night at the hotel, my food bill was £11.75 – 3 pence more than allowed, however seeing as on the other nights I’d barely spent £10, I chanced that I could talk the finance people into approving it as the total spend would still be less than allowed for the week. The monday I returned, I completed the expense form with the receipts and handed it to my boss for approval.

An hour later, I was summonned to his office. He flatly refused to sign off on the expenses as I had overspent. When I tried to explain that it was by three pence, and that on the Monday night I had actually underspent by £2.50, I was lectured as to the reason that the limits were there, and to “read the policy”. He sent me back to my desk and told me to resubmit.

Cue malicious compliance. I read the policy regarding expenses, then I read the staff handbook, and then my contract. As it turned out, I could claim for the following:

* Reasonable costs for calling my family in the evening – no receipt required.
* £5 per night for being away from my family – no receipt needed.
* One off £30 for being more than 3 hours travel – offered as an incentive.
* Regardless of time spent on course, It was equivalent to 40 hours – my standard was 37.
* Travel to and from the venue was classed as being in work. That was overtime as it was out of hours and double for the sunday.
* Friday, as I was late home, was considered an overnight stay.

I resubmitted, making the adjustments and highlighting the sections of the policies. Where I had expected around £75 in expenses, with the extras in the policies I claimed for an extra £100, then filled in the timesheet for the travel overtime which granted me an additional £150 or so.

The boss called me back into the office and tried to tell me that he wouldn’t sign off on it, but I referred him to the policies and simply told him that if he refused, I’d go above him and maybe submit a formal complaint about him. I did take great satisfaction in reminding him that if he hadn’t have told me to “read the policies”, then I’d have never found about all the extras.

Yes, I did inform every one of my work friends. Yes, I did get all the claimed funds in my next paycheck.

tl,dr; Boss refuses expenses over £0.03, I resubmit costing them more money