expenses 'lost' in the post.

dreammcostume

Hello, I need some advice.
My job involves buying items from shops for clients and I have run into a tricky one!
I made £1000 worth of purchases which the client has, but I posted them the receipts. Stupidly I didn't send them recorded delivery and my copier was broken so I didn't make copies. I won't make that mistake again, as the receipts have been 'lost' in the post.
I suggested to the client that I invoiced for the amount, but they said they needed proof of purchase, so I sent copies of my bank statement as most of the purchases were made on my card. Apparently that won't do either as their accounts department will only pay what has been accounted for. I'm stumped! the company are refusing to pay me until this is sorted but are not telling me how I can sort it! Is there anything I can do?? I am a self employed.

Pennywise

dreammcostume wrote: »

Is there anything I can do??

Contact the retailers and ask for a copy of the invoices. At least some will be able to provide them. Give them full details from the credit card statements inc ref numbers. It may take a while and lots of chasing but you should get some.

As an alternative, raise an invoice, send it to them, and take them to court if they dont pay it. Assuming you've got proof you gave them the goods, you'd probably win the case (but lose your customer).

davec1960

dreammcostume wrote: »

Stupidly I didn't send them recorded delivery

This wouldn't have made any difference, they could still have been lost and you would be in the exact same position you are now in.
Recorded delivery is only useful if you need to prove that something has been received, it does not guarantee that it will be delivered.

Buy a cheap all in one printer, they can be bought for £40 or less, and use the scanner in the future.

It sounds as if the company, quite correctly, has a procedure for only paying out expense claims upon production of valid receipts.
There will almost certainly be someone who has authority to bypass this procedure and allow payment, you need to find who this person is and deal with them rather than people lower in the organisation who cannot help you.

Mistral001

Davec1960

Some good points there. Yes, I would go over heads of accounts department or at least contact the department which is using the goods as it would be obvious to someone that the goods had been received by the firm and that someone paid for them.

I would point out that it is more likely that the recipiant lost the receipts than Royal Mail, so recorded delivery would have been of some help in establishing that the receipts were actually delivered to the firm and avoid the most likely senario of the firm losing them.

custardy

dreammcostume wrote: »

Hello, I need some advice.
My job involves buying items from shops for clients and I have run into a tricky one!
I made £1000 worth of purchases which the client has, but I posted them the receipts. Stupidly I didn't send them recorded delivery and my copier was broken so I didn't make copies. I won't make that mistake again, as the receipts have been 'lost' in the post.
I suggested to the client that I invoiced for the amount, but they said they needed proof of purchase, so I sent copies of my bank statement as most of the purchases were made on my card. Apparently that won't do either as their accounts department will only pay what has been accounted for. I'm stumped! the company are refusing to pay me until this is sorted but are not telling me how I can sort it! Is there anything I can do?? I am a self employed.

on something of this value(in the end) you need to use Special Delivery
considering consequential loss cover too

Raksha

Many Android phone can be used as scanners to produce .pdf files too, I rarely use a scanner now to make copies of documents.

Doesn't help with your current problem I know. But may help in future.

getmore4less

How do you charge for the services?

Always put an invoice in with the goods you deliver.

Uncertain

davec1960 wrote: »

It sounds as if the company, quite correctly, has a procedure for only paying out expense claims upon production of valid receipts.
There will almost certainly be someone who has authority to bypass this procedure and allow payment, you need to find who this person is and deal with them rather than people lower in the organisation who cannot help you.

Exactly.

The company's "procedures" do not cancel out their legal obligation to pay.

somethingcorporate

Could always take a quick photo on your phone - I've done this a number of times to keep a record of documents that are important.