Changes effective from 1 March 2012

The following changes to the Payments Manual have been approved by the Payments Review Group and signed off by the Finance Operations Board.

Section 4.2.(b) Receipts

"wherever the supplier can reasonably be expected to provide such documentation" has been deleted and in the second paragraph after "without receipts", "or reasonable explanation" inserted.

A definition of a receipt should be included as it is apparently common practice for credit card chits to be submitted instead of receipts. A new third paragraph has been inserted:

"Credit card receipts or copies of credit card / bank statements are NOT valid receipts for these purposes. Written or printed receipts providing evidence that specific goods or services have been received and paid for are considered valid for this purpose."

At the bottom of section (b) about shared receipts a 4th paragraph has been inserted, relevant in cases meals are shared and the costs are split.

"Where expenses are shared, e.g. in the case of meals, claimants are required to obtain separate receipts as an individual receipt cannot be used to support more than one claim."

Section 4.2.(c) Submission of Claims

The second from last paragraph has been re-worded to reflect the new process of raising exceptions with departments. "returned" has been replaced with "referred" which does not indicate the claim will necessarily be returned to the department.

The last three words in the final paragraph "prior to payment" are superfluous and have been removed.

Section 4.2.(d) authorisation of Expense Claims

Under point (ii), the wording "the claim is completed accurately, is mathematically correct..." etc. has been added. This is to indicate the importance of filling out key details, such as name, address and bank account number accurately.

The penultimate paragraph before the conditions box requires amendments to be signed by both the claimant and authoriser. The purpose of this requirement was unclear since there was no way of validating the initial as originating from either party. A confirmation that amendments had been noted was thought to be helpful and the group suggested that only the authoriser should initial so "the claimant and by" has been deleted.

Section 4.2.(e) Missing Signatories

This concerns the claimant’s signature on the expenses form and the current dispensation for non-members of the university, e.g. interview candidates. The purpose of the signature is to confirm adherence to the University rules and to certify expenses are incurred wholly, necessarily and exclusively for business purposes. The need for the form to include an original signature can cause unnecessary delays in reimbursement and accounting where members of the University are away from Oxford, e.g. on overseas research and either forget to sign the form or send in their receipts to their department for another member of staff to process. In these cases it is necessary to send the form to the claimant to be signed and posted back. The dispensation will be extended to overseas researchers and other members who are away from Oxford for a considerable period, i.e. more than a month. Claimants should be required to email a standard declaration to be attached to the expenses form instead of the signature. The normal process of signing the expenses form should still be the default requirement but the alternative approach could be permitted by exception.

At the top of the first paragraph, "by a claimant who is not a member of the University" has been deleted. In the box, points (i) and (ii) have been amalgamated and a new item (ii) has been inserted as:

"the claim relates to a member of the university who is working overseas for a continuous period of more than 1 month. In these cases the claimant must provide a written declaration reference to the particular claim which contains the wording: I can confirm that the claim for reimbursement of £... whilst on University business for the period (date range) is in respect of bona fide business expenses, incurred wholly, exclusively and necessarily on behalf of the University."

New section 4.2(f) - Taxable Items

The following wording has been inserted: "Where claims include elements that HMRC deem to be taxable, it will be is necessary to refer these claims to the Payroll team to so they can record the details for submission to HMRC at a later date. This may often result in a delay to the approved claims being processed, although every effort is made to return these claims to the Payments Team for processing within the timescales for standard expense claims"

Section 4.4.(d) Advance Reconciliation and Clearing of Advances

In the 3rd paragraph, a new sentence has been added after the first sentence to read "Advances must never be cleared by journal".

In the fifth paragraph, the words "payable to the University" have been included after "cheque".

Section 4.5 Senior Officers and Delegation of Authority

A de minimis limit of £100 has been introduced for claims submitted by Heads of Department such that claims up to this value would not need counter approval from the division. "(for claims exceeding £100)" has been inserted after "Head of Department" in the box.

Section 4.7.(b) Use of Personal Credit Cards

It is normal practice to use a personal credit card for business expenses. The words "Where no other alternative exists" have been removed.

Section 7.1.(d) Out of Hours Working

More discretion will be given to departments to authorise taxis for late night working. Criteria (i) to (iv) should act as guidance to assist with the decision, rather than be a set of rules. The second paragraph has been reworded as follows. "The only exception to this, where payment is allowed at the discretion of the department, is to cover the cost of late night taxi fares." Guidance is given below of the criteria that should be applied by departments when making this decision. The box heading has been changed from "Conditions" to "Guidance".

In addition, point (iii) is felt to go into unnecessary detail and the bracketed section has been removed. A one-off need to transport heavy bags might be a legitimate reason to use a taxi.

Section 7.2.(b) Surface Travel

Specific guidance has been introduced for taxis. A sentence has been added at the end of the second paragraph to indicate the rule change. "However at the discretion of a department, taxi fares up to the value of £25.00 may be claimed without the need to provide such explanation".

Section 7.2.(c) Air Travel

The heading in the table has been changed from "is allowed" to "may be allowed". Condition (iii) is subjective and difficult to enforce, e.g. what does a meet on University business mean? The following change to criteria (iii) has been made:

"(iii) the person travelling is required to attend a meeting, deliver a lecture, examine a viva or similar within 4 hours of arrival."

Section 7.3.(a) Departmental Vehicles

"are supplied with" has been changed to "have".

Section 7.3.(b) Rules for the use of Pooled and Work Vehicles

Item (iii) was ambiguous (this was noted by PWC) so a specific time has been included. Under item (iii) "early" has been replaced with "before 9.00am".

Within item (iv) it should be made clear who is responsible for maintaining the log, so "by the department" has been inserted after "maintained".

Section 7.4(c) Rules for use of hired Vehicles

As with section 7.3.(b) above "early" replaced with "early" with "before 9.00am".

Section 8.2.(a) Expenses Allowed

A rewording of the first sentence was recommended, as follows: "All overnight accommodation in the course of business....reasonable quality hotel, see rates in Section 8.2.(b). ‘Whether in the UK or overseas" is not needed and has been removed.

Section 8.2.(c) Expenses not allowed

Examples are not required under (c). The reference specifically to mini-bar drinks was confusing  as it suggested a value for money issue and might leave the reader wondering whether all mini-bar drinks are excluded from incidental expenses. "entertainment" is too broad so the second sentence, starting “Examples” has been deleted. Any expenditure within the fairly modest limits published should be allowable.

A new section 2.3 Responsibilities of Claimants, Authorisers and the University’s Payments Team has been inserted.