WebExpenses blog

We've moved!

The MP expenses scandal: Why it matters

The scandal of the UK MPs and their excessive expense claims has reached a new crescendo, with fresh details including the news that a senior minister claimed for porn films and a bath plug and that MPs are able to not only profit from the sale of their government funded properties but that they are also able to claim back the detested ‘stamp duty’ property sales tax that they have imposed on their constituents.

For a good summary of some of the juicier details, here is The Time’s list of the 10 most outrageous expense claims ever: http://tinyurl.com/c7kf7y . Personally, I think that they missed a few that should have also been there.

We resist the temptation to comment every time the media goes nuts on the issue. However, we do thing that it’s pertinent to remind ourselves why this is important:

“There is strong correlation between corruption and poverty.” Transparency International, the global coalition against corruption.

“Each penny taxed which is not spent properly is a theft from the people.” Gustav Moller, creator of the Swedish welfare state.

In other words, if our esteemed MPs have got it into their heads that their role implies an invitation to line their pockets to the greatest extend possible, then they are unlikely to be doing the job of looking after the interests of their constituents effectively.

But there’s more. When the constituents witness the money grubbing of their elected leaders, they will be disinclined to contribute tax dollars to a system that they view as being corrupt. And so the spiral continues.

What can you learn from this as someone responsible for managing a workforce? To avoid the same effect in micro format in your organisation, apply some common sense: It’s fine to assume that employees will do the right thing, but make sure that everyone knows the guidelines. Set an example at the top of the organisation. And above all, be fair.

We're recuiting...

Targets are being met and we’re forecasting our third consecutive year of 50% revenue growth. As a result, we’re looking to fill three positions, all home-based, in the UK:

1. Sales Executive
This is a hands-on sales role in which we’d expect you to click with a small team and have an immediate impact by closing regular deals. It is a distinct advantage if you are able to bring something special to the party in terms of industry experience, contacts or skills.

It’s an advantage if you are based in the South East.

Basic salary in the range of £30-40,000 dependent on experience and an OTE of 200% of base salary.

2. Partner and Accounts Manager
You responsibilities will be in two broad areas: Managing our relationships with our existing customer base and taking responsibility for managing existing and establishing new relationships with business partners, which include Top 10 accounting firms, payroll solution providers, software resellers and major ISPs.

There is a considerable business development element to the role, and we envisage that as our business continues to grow, the role may evolve into a pure business development role.

Basic salary in the range of £30-40,000 dependent on experience and an OTE of 150% of base salary.

3. Support Executive
Broad ranging responsibilities, all to do with keeping customers happy. An understanding of technology and accounting processes is an advantage given that our customer contracts are mostly finance managers.

Salary in the range of £18-20,000 dependent on experience.

If you know someone who’d be just right for one of these positions, let us know: HR at webexpenses.com .

New feature - receipt attachments now live in beta

Our new receipt attachments feature is now live as a beta.

It’s great functionality and I love the approach that the product team have taken in letting users attach files of more or less any format to support an expense claim.

I’ve attached the following to my own claims:

- Scanned images, produced on my home office printer.
- Digital photos taken with my mobile phone.
- HTML emails (from the Trainline.com and BA).

You can also attach PDFs, word docs or Excel spreadsheets, and file size can be as large as 5 MB.

For me personally, quickest and easiest is to simply snap a photo of receipts on my Nokia N95 - that phone has a great camera and the legibility is fantastic as illustrated by the image below.

Let us know if you’d like to try this out and we’ll get you set up.

New hosting set-up

The EU makes it official

Good news from the EU: The European Commission has proposed changing the European VAT Directive so that electronic and paper invoices can be treated equally. The EC also plans to allow invoices to be stored electronically, even if the original invoice is in paper format.

The official release is here: http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/09/132

Transparency = Moderation = Cost Savings

The debacle on MPs expenses continues as the Prime Minister intervenes at the eleventh hour with an embarrassing U-turn and an announcement that plans to amend the Freedom of Information laws to exempt MPs expenses would be abandoned.

It’s been widely speculated in the media that the reason why MPs are so desperate to conceal their past expenses is that said expenses must be immensely embarrassing.

This brings us to the issue that lies at the heart of this soap opera and it is the same issue that has motivated many of our customers to graduate from the non-transparent paper based expenses process:

If your expenses process is transparent and allows for expense claim data to be analysed over time, then employees will moderate their behaviour and your organisation will spend less on travel and entertainment.

MPs and their expenses - it's becoming personal

The saga of our MPs and their expenses rolls on. Here’s a quick summary of today’s developments:

- MPs are sneakily preparing to pass a new law that will allow them to defy a High Court order that would have forced them to disclose their expenses under the Freedom of Information Act.

- The new measures will allow MPs to continue to make claims far in excess of what the taxman would deem reasonable in the private sector, and similarly far in excess of what is acceptable in the public sector as a whole.

Needless to say, the rumblings of revolt are building to a crescendo from all sides in response to the ‘one rule for us, and another rule for the rest of the populace’ attitude shown by the MPs.

However, the statement that I reacted to was this one from Speaker of the House Michael Martin, in justifying why MPs would not have to submit receipts: “It would be excessively burdensome for Members to have provided receipts for all transactions and that additional costs incurred would be likely disproportionate.”

For me that’s when it becomes a little personal: We’ve invested a lot of effort into making sure that expenses can be entered, approved and processed quickly, easily and inexpensively. The technology now exists - give us a call Mr Speaker and we’ll solve all your issues immediately.

Change in VAT rate to 15% - impact on WebExpenses users

What has happened?

As an early Christmas present to the citizens of these fair isles, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced in the Pre-Budget Report that the Government will be lowering the standard VAT rate for the United Kingdom by 2.5% from 17.5% to 15%. This takes effect from 1st December 2008. The reduction is a temporary measure until 31st December 2009 when the rate will revert to 17.5%.

What changes have we made to WebExpenses software?

For a period of time you can expect to be reimbursing expense items both at the 17.5% rate (those incurred before 1 December) and at the 15% rate (those incurred from 1 December). For this reason we have included both rates on the VAT drop down list that a user sees when entering expense items. Note that if the user enters the incorrect rate, the accounts person is able to amend the rate.

What changes might you want to make yourself?

You may choose to use the Administration menus to change the default rate for certain categories to 15%: Go to Administration > Category > Choose category e.g. Airfare > Choose 15.0 from the drop down list beside VAT Rate.

If your accounting software requires a code for the new 15% rate you can add this by following these steps: Go to Administration > VAT Rates > United Kingdom > VAT Rates > Choose 15.0 and add a new code as appropriate.

For more information about the VAT changes, please visit the HMRC website.

Should you require specific help in setting default rates, adding VAT codes or similar please contact us on 0870 442 2934 or email support@webexpenses.com.

Tweaking features

We’re constantly adding new features or changing existing features to meet the specific requirements of our customers. Making these sort of tweaks is something that we’re particularly good at. However, we’re not so great at keeping the broader customer base up on what we’re doing in this regard. So with that in mind, here are a couple of examples, illustrated by the screen shots at the bottom of the page:

Complex mileage functionality: A customer wanted mileage rates to be determined by the registration number of the car driven for a particular journey. Not only that - they also wanted the starting odometer reading for a month to be determined by the ending odometer reading for the previous month.

The bottom line on mileage: Bring your requirement to us, however complex, and we’ll make it happen.

Multiple approver levels: A customer required multiple approval levels, with the number of approvers determined by the value of the claim.

The bottom line on approver levels: We can configure the approver workflow based on a number of factors, including the value of the claim.

WebExpenses on IE8 and Google Chrome

You’ve no doubt heard the buzz over the past few days: Each of Microsoft and Google have released beta versions of new browsers.

Here’s a quick summary of our initial testing and impressions:

Microsoft IE8 - There should be no problems using WebExpenses on IE8. There are a few rendering issues, in particular in the reports, which will soon be addressed. In the meantime, they can be resolved by clicking the ‘Compatibility View’ beside the address bar in your browser.

Google Chrome - We’re a little stunned - never ever has WebExpenses performed as quickly as it does in Google Chrome. So if you fancy trading in your Honda and taking a Ferrari for a spin…buckle in.

Note that both browsers are in Beta and in the event that you’re using either please let us know if you identify ‘bugs’ that we haven’t yet addressed: http://webexpenses.com/support.htm