As an Auditor of claims I am perfectly happy that if you are unable to obtain a receipt for your newspaper from the vendor then when you retain all your receipts for the year in which you are required write a small note, probably no more than a couple of lines that you actually expended that amount of money. When/if you get audited the Auditor will be quite happy with the note as this has covered everything that you expended within the IE limit.

I think the whole purpose of the change to the JSP is to stop everyone on temporary assignment from claiming a flat rate £5. £5 is the limit. If you do not actually expend that amount of money then why should you be re-imbursed.

Also I may point out the a survey has been carried out into the true cost of a 3 minute phone call/newpaper/laundry. Phone call £1.90 for a three minute call using a BT charge card to a Mobile Phone. £0.65 for the Times(daily) and whatever your laundry cost bearing in mind that most Senior Ranks/Wardroom(Officers Mess) the laundry machines are free.

That is OK if you are in a mess in the UK. or anywhere for that matter, but as you know, we RAF types much prefer hotels to land based ships.

I don't think a 3 min call to a mobile from the USA is £1.90, also most hotels charge for washers/driers.

I know the USA IE is upto £10, but if :mad: MPs do not have to provide a reciept (otherwise known as PROOF) for any amount, why should I create space for a year, for many months worth of reciepts for a 65p daily newspaper.?

Heard today that the JPA staff may be going on strike, hmm question is how will we tell the difference!!??

Because they tell us to and if we don't we get to go and see the good old police and get charged with fraud when we get audited.:ugh:

Currently in USA preoccupied with how I have to "manage" my capped actuals...It has created an accounting nightmare for an accounting ludite like me; ensured that among my friends and collegues we have to keep tabs on who had the popadoms, how many they had, when they had them, and how much they cost; pre-occupied us to the extent where just living and surviving away from home has defocused our concentration on the professional tasks that we were deployed to achieve.

Well done to the arse that imposed this system; you have succeded in destroying the limited and only perks of being continually detached from our families, focused our attention on the pointless aspects of accounting rather than the mission that we were deployed to achieve, and for ensuring that the Service now spends many pounds in order to save a few pennies.

Avtur - Well said. After 9 months of suffering JPA, I can see only a deterioration in the conditions it has brought. Initially I was even prepared to give JPA the benefit of the doubt, after all, surely all those leaders who had told us we would see a real benefit in being 'able to take control' of our own admin, could not be speaking total hoop? Now I can see that it is quite the worse thing in my 22 yrs service.

I work in a NATO HQ, I do not have access to JPA in my workplace, I have to use a shared 56kbps dial-up connection in another building - even entering the simplest 2-line claim cannot be achieved in less than 30 minutes. It often takes me several weeks before I have time to put a claim in, several times I have experienced anomalies on JPA which have totally screwed the foreign exchange rates, international calls to the 'help' line to attempt to resolve issues have to be paid and accounted for (no military phone connection). I am lucky if the pay gets to my account in under a month after expenditure.

Take into account the inevitable audits (I am running at about a 25% rate) and JPA is taking up more of my work time than you would believe. It has now got so bad that I cannot spare time away from the desk to sort some of the issues and have found myself coming in off leave to sort JPA issues - I would not bother if I was not so out of pocket. I would actually like someone to send me one of those bloody annoying surveys on time management so I can itemize the waste of time JPA has become.

I heard last month that the Army are not going to let their chaps interface with JPA, but will have a trained corps to handle claims and admin for individuals - it is too important for said individuals to continue their jobs as soldiers apparently. Shame that the RAF do not act the same; I've had an idea!...we could fill in a blue claim form thingy... and pass it on to a section in the headquarters...and they could then credit an entitled amount to our bank accounts.... and then we could get on with our primary jobs!

Back to Avtur's point. JPA is pedigree rubbish that is getting worse and worse. It is the biggest 'push' factor that is going to make me take my coming option.

End of rant.

Sorry to use your quotes, but this is what you do.1st point. If you do not have access to JPA where you work, E-mail your expenses to your Unit HR and get them to fill out the manual form that they can send up to JPAC. This should lessen the amount of time that you have to wait for your money.

2nd Point. Your 25% audit of claims is about right. 1 in 5 claims are audited so you are only 5% above the line. Bearing in mind that if you put in more that 4 claims per 30 days all your claims will be audited for a further 60 day period. Trick to remember here is to put more than one journey on each claim.

3rd Point. If you do take your coming option make sure that you don't work for the civil Service. Their Pay system (HRMS) is even worse than the one you are working on.:ouch:

to use the seasonal vernacular: "Oh no it isn't."

I ger paid every month, on time and the correct amount. It a claim is slightly late they will run a second pay run and slip it in on time.

If I file a claim it is in the bank in two days. I have never been audited. If I am audited and the Taxman decides I have been paid too much the civil service will make up the difference.

I do not need to justify my PIE.

The only downside is I must keep receipts for 3 years not 12 months.

Civil servants do not have capped actulas, they just have actuals, and it includes Wine.

Quite right, I forgot the half bottle of wine. Naturally this means you must dine with another CS - Mouton Cadet with the Fillet Mignon and Sautern with the desert.:}

I'd be very interested if that were possible - seeing as many of the transactions on JPA are to be by the individual - and that is password access. One of the airships at a secret Bucks HQ directed his outer office staff to do this work - and they were unable to as it is personal entry only. I'd always feared the workload it would put on our Army privates (and airships of course).

From what I understand at my unit, Banana Boy is quite correct, When privates want to use JPA and enter data they will be sat with a HR staff member who will tell them what to do. They have been told that they will not have solo access and will be baby sat for 100% of the access time.

From what I have heard from mates in other Joint units the same is true with them as well.

Number1Matelot
 

Numner1matelot, you rock and actually know what you are talking about. Very well done!

Many thanks for the vote of confidence.:D

BBC Look North and JPA
 

BBC Look North have just run a long item on JPA. Various claims on no pay, inaccurate pay with e-mail from a Rockape who said he was fed-up with sitting in a hole in the sand being shot t whilst his wife and family hadn't received the money to pay for food or the morgage.
MoD stated that the system functions well and that 99% of pay and allowances were delivered correctly in December.
This did not apparently tie up with the Beeb's information; they interviewed a Tory MP from Yorkshire who is tabling questions in the House; they also had several quotes from what was discreetly described as a RAF forum.
Maybe something will happen as said Tory MP was getting agitated about the planned roll-out to the Army later in the year.
This had all the hallmarks of a carefully planned assault - any other regions carry a similar report?

Err no they're not. They are paid for and maintained by Mess members through Subscriptions and Bar Profits. I think it appropriate to claim Mess Subs when visiting another mess, but I hadn't considered claiming the 'profit' element of the bar purchases.

STH

But they should be - they are scaled items and should be publically funded through the Works Services budget.

Talk to Catering Ops at STC if you want to know the truth!

As maybe but I have never lived in a mess where the livers in haven't had to pay a laundy charge for the upkeep of the washing machines.

Put my first travel claim in this week. In the bank within 2 days...:ok: :ok: Progress. Now....if they can just sort out my GYH they did not pay me Nov/Dec.....

Just wait till you get back off that 4 month det to find out that they Audited you 3 months ago... and find your in-tray lots of snotty letters from PSF... :mad: