T&S under £100 - receipts.

[TechRiskPartners]

Just a quick question. I have started 3 contracts and they are taking me all over. I am incurring expenses extensively- travel, breakfast, meal, meal, parking, flights. I am struggling to keep on top of expense receipts. My Accountant told me to keep all receipts. I am using another contractor on my payroll whose Accountant says anything more than £100, keep a receipt, anything below ok with credit/ debit card statement. I am in this for good and long run. So I want to make sure I follow everything by the rule and set examples for others. However its becoming a huge time consuming and I want to focus on value stuff than admin.
Q1 - what is the normal practice? Expectations?
Q2 - any software to manage the issue?

Thanks in advance.


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[northernladuk]

Just a quick question. I have started 3 contracts and they are taking me all over. I am incurring expenses extensively- travel, breakfast, meal, meal, parking, flights. I am struggling to keep on top of expense receipts. My Accountant told me to keep all receipts. I am using another contractor on my payroll whose Accountant says anything more than £100, keep a receipt, anything below ok with credit/ debit card statement. I am in this for good and long run. So I want to make sure I follow everything by the rule and set examples for others. However its becoming a huge time consuming and I want to focus on value stuff than admin.
Q1 - what is the normal practice? Expectations?
Q2 - any software to manage the issue?

Thanks in advance.

Keep all receipts. It's not hard. Takes a little bit longer to manage whilst earning over 100k a year granted but hey ho. More important in your case as it sounds like you are going to be putting a lot more in without receipts than most of us so you are even more at risk. IMO the more money is involve, the more diligent you are, not the other way around.

So I want to make sure I follow everything by the rule and set examples for others. However its becoming a huge time consuming and I want to focus on value stuff than admin.

BUt you don't. You are looking for shortcuts. I also don't believe it's hugely time consuming and as a director of a small business, doing the admin is part and parcel of it. You run a business first. If you don't like it go umbrella. I'm sure the difference in income is worth the bit of extra hassle.

Q2 - any software to manage the issue?

I do wish you'd do a little bit of your own research before asking absolutely everything of us. It's very tedious. You might actually find it adds extra value to do it as you might find other information that's useful or worth looking at.

Before you ask anything else search the forums first. Nothing you do is unique.

Type the following into google (try changing the keywords as well)

scan receipts site:forums.contractoruk.com

Failing that hit google. Lots of useful stuff there like this link. Try be a leader in a solution rather than a follower.

The 8 Best Receipt Scanners and Trackers of 2019

EDIT : The same comment about searching the forums about scanning receipts applies to Q1 as well. Plenty of threads on this.

keeping receipts site:forums.contractoruk.com - Google Search

[northernladuk]

And please stop hijacking threads that aren't related to your question. Start a new one.

[Maslins]

Strict rules vs practical realities. There is no £100 de minimis limit, but it's extremely unlikely HMRC will ever ask someone to provide a receipt for a £10 train ticket. They're not that pedantic, and have bigger fish to fry.

In my experience of CT enquiries from years gone by, they would often ask something like "please provide a breakdown for the entries making up cost category X, providing invoices/receipts for anything above £Y".

So for example if it was £10,000 of travel, you'd give them the nominal code data that would show all the individual amounts, and might end up having to provide extra evidence of perhaps a couple of the flights/other more expensive things, whilst not providing receipts for the piddly bits. Of course if there's a huge number of little bits that add up to a huge amount, HMRC may ask for some further evidence. Not necessarily receipts, but if there's for example a huge number of £20 train tickets to/from a certain place, some evidence that you were doing work at that place, it qualified as a temporary workplace etc.

Re software, potentially look at something like ReceiptBank.

[WordIsBond]

Just a quick question. I have started 3 contracts and they are taking me all over. I am incurring expenses extensively- travel, breakfast, meal, meal, parking, flights. I am struggling to keep on top of expense receipts. My Accountant told me to keep all receipts. I am using another contractor on my payroll whose Accountant says anything more than £100, keep a receipt, anything below ok with credit/ debit card statement. I am in this for good and long run. So I want to make sure I follow everything by the rule and set examples for others. However its becoming a huge time consuming and I want to focus on value stuff than admin.
Q1 - what is the normal practice? Expectations?
Q2 - any software to manage the issue?

A. This thread is about trivial benefits, not travel expenses. They are different things.
B. You may want to check out scale rate expenses, especially if doing foreign travel. Discussed here.
C. Most here use Free Agent. I use Xero. Either would work for these purposes.

[NotAllThere]

And please stop hijacking threads that aren't related to your question. Start a new one.

Split off into new thread.