Actuals are coming!

[Testingtheseatlimit]

Actuals are coming! Any strong thoughts on the effect this might have on morale to add to Ingrams comments earlier today?

[StopStart]

.........do tell more?

[juliet]

if we are going on to actuals (hadnt heard so) then i can gaurantee that overall the bill to the service will come out much higher than what is currently paid in rates. if we are treated like children then we will start acting like children! (i exclude vc10 guys from this as they are already well versed in acting like children, even when on rates:p )

[JessTheDog]

This moves Service personnel into line with civil servants in one respect.

Also, the ridiculous situation where you were supposed to only get the CHBS rate for a hotel stay that was more expensive shuld be redressed (although I tried to make sure that everyone out of pocket was reimbursed).

Will the Services move to the self-certification system (whilst keeping receipts in case of audit) employed by the civil service? Can Armed Forces personnel be trusted? :uhoh: ;)

[goldcup]

juliet,

I take great exception to the VC10 comment in your last post! So much so that I'm gonna tell my dad on you. And my dad is much bigger than your dad. And anyway, you're dead after school.....

Actuals, eh? When will the bean counters ever learn that hungry and devious Ascoteers will always find a way round their attempts at curtailing our fun.

Where did this info come from? Haven't heard anything at our place (although I have been skiving off to avoid the AOC's inspection today)

[StopStart]

Ah…….happy days :D Who could forget the good old actuals in Kuwait? I remember getting a stand up bollocking from the then OC Accts when I was a young co-pilot as my imprest paperwork showed that a couple of crew members had taken their lunch by the pool – the meals showed up on the bill as “Poolside”. I tried to explain that three people had had burgers by the pool at a cost of about $10 each. Now almost blue in the face, OC Accts “advised” me that meals ARE to be taken in the hotel restaurant buffet and nowhere else.

Not wishing to cause any further losses to HMG I duly arranged for every crewmember to take lunch in the hotel restaurant, every day, next time I was there. Fabulously, the lunchtime buffet worked out at about $45 a head. All 6 of us trooped in for lunch every day in the restaurant. This meant a daily bill of between $250 and $300. For 4 days.
Accountancy in action……. $40 a day by the pool or $300 a day in the restaurant?

Accts Flt were much happier with the second bill……

[BEagle]

Leaving aside the puerile sniping that will undoubtedly follow the post from juliet, the concept of reimbursment for justifiable out of pocket expenses doesn't seem that unreasonable to me as mere civilian filth.....

Until you consider the practicalities. Specifically who would pay the cost of the 'actual' expense - and when. And who would justify it?

Nowadays if I travel somewhere, the company pays for me to drive to the airport, park, fly to wherever, stay overnight and the same coming back. Plus any meals I might pay for. Easy enough, just send them the breakdown every month. OK - fine for one person and a company which trusts you and isn't spending taxpayers' money directly.

But to settle a Service bill with every single item fully receipted and identified.....what joy for the FSI holder. Perhaps juliet's auxiliary crew station will soon house an Air Adminer with laptop to account for every actual penny spent?

"OK - who didn't have rice...?"

[Gainesy]

A bean counter at a large firm I once worked for demanded receipts for every little thing.

Pratt was quite happy with receipts he could not possibly read, written in Thai, Russian, Zulu etc. Kept all his beans in a line I suppose.:rolleyes:

[JessTheDog]

A bean counter at a large firm I once worked for demanded receipts for every little thing.

Pratt was quite happy with receipts he could not possibly read, written in Thai, Russian, Zulu etc. Kept all his beans in a line I suppose.

I vaguelly recall a tale of a hapless SAC (or Cpl) who found a receipt from a trip to Norway and decided to claim on the back of it, having lost his own receipts and in need of money.

Trouble was, that his countersigning officer (RAF) knew Norwegian...1771 was resubmitted without receipt!

The system the civil service use seems to work for them and they are larger than the Armed Forces! Could I see our lords and masters simply transferring the system across without introducing various hoops to jump through? Not really....

[BEagle]

Rumour has it that the 'foreign receipt' trick worked quite well for a while. Until someone brought back a recipt in Russian thinking "That'll fox the blighters"....

Until The Blunt Ones found someone who understood Russian - and who then asked them about all the wine and vodka on the bill!

[juliet]

jeez, touched a nerve did i? back to my box then from where i will keep quiet and promise not to snipe ever again, puerile or not:p any advice on in flight catering and imprests from the vc10 champs would still be appreciated though:)

[Impiger]

Interesting spread of views. On the whole actuals will cost the budget more as people will not generally impose any self discipline on their spending habits if it is all to be reimbursed so long as it meets the 'eligibility' criteria. That is why it was dropped last time around.

I work in a mixed Service + Civilian organisation where we often travel together. The civvies want receipts for all meals (and can claim up to half a bottle of wine with dinner) and claim back total expenditure afterwards. My claims go to Uxbridge who scrutinise like mad, even though I'm the budget holder, and then pay up without a murmur. My RN colleague sends his to HMS Nelson (I think) who scrutinise like mad, argue the toss, scrutinise again and then write to me to check that I'm happy even though I countersigned in the first place. My army officers are only in the Service as a hobby and for something to do between managing the family estate and adventurous training so don't bother claiming!

[cazatou]

Beagle,

You will remember the days of travelling to Italy before the Euro; and justifying the expenditure you incurred unwittingly (in a currency where even children were millionaires) and nobody had any change.

It got so bad under one OC Accounts that OC "XX" Sqn did the next trip to Rome and returned his Imprest to the Plt Off Accountant together with a large bag of boiled sweets; patiently explaining that "the orange ones are 20 lira; the green ones are 30 lira, the red ones are 50 lira" etc.

Then there was trying to explain that you really needed US Dollars and UK Pounds to go to Moscow; they didn't want roubles - they had enough of their own.

We once took an OC Accounts as imprest holder on a training flight - never, ever, again. It took months to sort out the paperwork!!!

[JessTheDog]

I have heard of speeding fines claimed as "road tolls" after European trips.

[BEagle]

There was once a fierce Air Vice Corporal Cashwraf at the covert Oxonian Aerodrome, who wouldn't process our FSI returns from night stops in Palermo.....

"Who sanctioned these hire cars - they're not cheap?"
"They were provided by the Handling Agent!"

"Who appointed that Handling Agent. The fees are very expensive"
"Group did. And It's the only one at Punta Raisi"

"Why couldn't you just book your oqn hire cars?"
"Because it's Sicily - and that's the way things happen! You don't use his hire cars, the fuel for the aircraft doesn't arrive..."

"I need a name and address of the Manager to give to Command Accounts"
"OK, it's Mr Don Corleone, La Cosa Nostra, Palermo!"

Never did know what she did, but the FSIs were processed the next day!


And now it's over to some ex-Victor mate to recoun the tale of the Money Monster and the coat hangars at Ellsworth during Prairie Vortex......

[BEagle]

'Bribe' is a bit obvious, I once had to include a 'Customs handling fee' on a FSI at Dakar which SEngO had paid to the police to encourage them to recover a u/s Conway fuel flow regulator which had been stolen by the locals - they just wanted the wooden crate it was in and had dumped it in a ditch!

That's the same Money Monster, by the way!

[Green Flash]

One place where the civil servants hold an advantage is the ability to get an advance. Back of a fag packet sums should get you some where near (then cut it to, say, 80% to be sure) then bung in an advance. When you are spending Gordons lucre the subsequent claim is processed in double quick time!

[USasBRIEFED]

Once sent on a 3 week det and made to go on actuals for the whole period. I put a large box in the det ops room for all the crews to donate their receipts. At the end of 3 weeks I presented the chief clerk with 2 dustbin bags full of receipts and asked for my money! After returning to my office I had a call from OC Accts to ask if I would mind having rates instead!

I of course accepted her offer. Following year the subject of actuals was not even raised !

[vecvechookattack]

Is this anything to do with the new JPA scheme which is on its way in?

[callsign Metman]

Our MOD agency (guess which one!) went over to actuals about 7 years ago I think. T&S cost have risen considerably and the bean counters are happier now that they have a paper trail to follow. The problem is that staff are generally unwilling to undertake detachments to cover for sickness, leave etc at other stations, so surprise, surprise....a detached duty allowance has been introduced as an incentive to detach somewhere. Stupid!! Why not just ditch the actuals and go back to a rate. Save a LOT of time and money.

CM

[Circuit Basher]

I've spent a reasonable amount of time operating on both.

I'm now operating more in a Proj Mgr role in an ex-MOD Agency and we are on actuals - surprisingly enough, everyone tends towards staying in expensive hotels, eating better food. T&S costs have risen, but the beancounters are happier because they have a paper trail. The time spent completing claim forms is not visible to them, so that is not assessed as part of the cost of a trip. Major complaint from myself (and others) is that all visible costs associated with a trip are reimbursed. There are other costs associated directly with me being away (such as kennelling for dogs, cattery for cats, babysitter for junior on nights that the wife goes out whilst I'm away) that are not reimusible and I am thus out of pocket. Beancounters in civvy company are happy, because they can reclaim VAT on duty paid items with receipts.

When on rates, I lived for almost 2 years in Canada and paid for at least half a PPL out of the excess that I made. I was happy, company were happy, as they could predict very accurately costs for my time there. When I've arranged detachments of guys overseas, I've been able to accurately forecast budgets with negligible error (quite important when it's 15 guys in the US for 3 months on a firm price task!).

Guys are much happier travelling on fixed rates (so long as there is some slack), as it enables them to live how they want and covers the incidentals of being away.

[Jimlad]

I can see it from both sides, as a MOD civil servant and a reservist I get to use both systems. PersonallyI prefer the actuals, but only becuase the new HRMS system means we get repaid within 3 working days. The paper system is a lot lot longer and the forces don't get travelling time either:E

[SVK]

BEags,

I too, recently ended up paying 'extra' at Dakar. However, these days they are underhanded enough to rip you off at the last possible moment because they know it would cost us more to delay the T/O. However, it has been noticed.....

[Green Flash]

CM & Jimlad - pse PM with location number!!

I have a cunning plan!:ok:

[Talk Reaction]

First surely the paper trail comes from the accountants who decide what the rate will be for individual countries???
Secondly the BIGGEST problem I see with actuals is that it relies on US to have money in our bank account, fine for 1 or 2 nights but not really on an unexpected 2 or 3 week det or cse at the end of a perhaps expensive month. What about our frankly underpaid techies???? It just smacks of the MOD getting an interest free loan (that they may argue about repaying promptly) from their subordinates (isn't there a QR????)

[Fg Off Bloggs]

vecvechookattack

Yes!

[vecvechookattack]

Good. Then if thats the case and if all the promises Ive been getting from the pen pushers are correct, we have nothing to worry about. Apparently the system is fool (jack) proof and will work a treat.

[Re-Heat]

Secondly the BIGGEST problem I see with actuals is that it relies on US to have money in our bank account, fine for 1 or 2 nights but not really on an unexpected 2 or 3 week det or cse at the end of a perhaps expensive month. What about our frankly underpaid techies???? It just smacks of the MOD getting an interest free loan (that they may argue about repaying promptly) from their subordinates (isn't there a QR????)
Surely they should offer you guys a corporate AmEx or Diners card to cover those as a result of those situations? Creates a paper trail electronically, and the money is there for all expenses where a credit card machine is available (admittadly not in some areas). Apologies for being so foolish as to think the MoD would ever use such a simple idea that companies all over the world use...and it might eliminate some jobs of people who add up the receipts.

Unbelievably incompetent system.

[vecvechookattack]

They do - its called a Corporate Barclaycard and you just whack it on that.

[JessTheDog]

Surely they should offer you guys a corporate AmEx or Diners card to cover those as a result of those situations?

I had a corporate AmEx during one posting, when I was out of the country on average once 1-2 months. This was an excellent system and the accounts people were quite flexible about using it to pay for hotels - supposedly not allowed. They even sent a replacement card to me at my next unit and for a fleeting moment I had a vision of myself on a Caribbean island living off the ill-gotten gains - just out of amusement, not out of serious consideration....honest!

[LXXIV]

Gentlemen, I can't let this thread go without sharing this, it's been lurking in the back of one of my logbooks for ages.

DE ????WC 1335 27??75


TO: RBLOYR/ HQ 1 GP/ RBLOYF/ RAF LYNEHAM

BT

UNCLAS

SIC

SIC IUQ/UFA

FROM MOV 5A (RAF) FOR SQN LDR TASKING HQ 1GP AND CAPTAIN OF ASCOT 4875. ALL FLIGHTS DEPARTING FROM KHATMANDU ON 3 OCT MAY BE SUBJECT TO SACRIFICIAL CEREMONY INVOLVING BEHEADING A GOAT. THE DEFENCE ATTACHE WILL BUY GOAT AND HIRE LOCAL PRIEST BUT BE PREPARED TO PAY POUNDS STERLING 40 FROM IMPREST TO COVER COST.

LXXIV