How to Claim Expenses – A Brief Guide
General
1. All claims MUST comply with the University Financial Regulations and the Travel, Subsistence and Other Expenses Policy. As it is the claimant’s responsibility to ensure that claims are only made for allowable expenditure, you should familiarise yourself with these policies before you incur expenditure. Checking by Financial and Legal Services staff does not remove the responsibility on the claimant and authorising signatory for ensuring that the claim is in accordance with these policies.
2. Staff who have access to e-Expenses through the myHR portal must claim expenses this way. There are a small number of staff, including sessional academic staff, who do not have access to myHR who may continue to submit claims using Form Fin1A.
How to claim
Making claims through myHR.
3. Claimants should log into the myHR portal and enter the details of the claim. Once the details have been entered, the claimant should review the claim, ensuring that the terms and conditions are met and send the claim, electronically, to the budget holder for approval.
4. The budget holder / approver may not necessarily be the line manager and, therefore, the claimant should always select the appropriate approver from the list. It is possible to search the list on surname or MMU ID.
See the e-expenses guidance for further details on use of the system.
5. Where there are receipted elements to the claim, a hard copy of the summary statement must be printed and the original receipts should be securely attached and then forwarded directly to:-
The Payroll Section
Room 301
All Saints Building.
Please do not send receipts without them being attached to the printed summary statement.
6. Once the claim has been approved and the original receipts are with the Payroll team, the claim will be processed and payment made with the next available salary. Where the claim is for mileage only, the Payroll Team will settle the claim for payment once the claim has been approved
Making claims on a Form Fin1A (only for employees without access to MyHR)
7. Staff who do not have access to myHR should submit claims on Form Fin1A . The details of the claim should be itemised on the form, including the budget code to where the expenses will be charged.
8. The claimant should attach all the original receipts, sign the form, and pass it to the budget holder for approval. Once the claim has been approved by the budget holder, it should be forwarded directly to:-
The Payroll Section
Room 301
All Saints Building.
The claim will then be processed for payment with the next available salary.
Non-staff claims
9. All other claimants should forward claims to the local Finance Service Centre using Form Fin 1C.
Receipts
10. Claims MUST be supported by valid receipts, except in the limited circumstances where fixed rate allowances are claimed (i.e. Personal Incidental Expenses). In these limited circumstances, receipts should be provided wherever possible and a full itemised list of personal incidental expenses must always be shown.
11. Credit card and debit card vouchers or bank statements are not acceptable forms of receipt to support expense claims, therefore, claimants are advised that they should always request a proper receipt.
12. Only original receipts will be accepted – not photocopies. Where original receipts are not attached to the claim the item(s) may be disallowed as receipts are required for HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) purposes.
13. Ticket stubs or receipts must be attached in support of any travel expense claim. Note that some railway tickets are retained at the end of the journey by automatic barriers, so a receipt should always be requested at the point of purchase. If the ticket is booked online as an ‘e-ticket’, i.e. there are no separate physical travel tickets issued, then a copy of the booking web page should be retained, printed, and attached to any claim.
Mileage
14. Please familiarise yourself with the rules regarding claiming mileage, in particular the requirement to deduct home to work mileage where the journey starts from or finishes at home. Mileage cannot be claimed between home and your normal place of work except in very limited circumstances where staff are ‘on call’. In these limit circumstances the expenses will be reimbursed but will be taxed to comply with HMRC guidance.
Incidental Overnight Expenses
15. Staff may claim the actual cost of incidental overnight expenses such as newspapers, one private phone call home per day, laundry etc. up to the allowable amount of £5 per night in the UK or £10 per night outside the UK. The use of this expense type is only for this type of expenditure and should not be used for other categories of expenditure including subsistence or travel. It must also not be used as a ‘catch all’ for any un-receipted expenditure. Receipts should be obtained wherever possible to support the claim, however, these are not essential for incidental overnight expense claims although a full itemised list of the expenditure must be given.