Boss refuses employee expenses because one receipt is over by £0.03, ends up owing £250 when they resubmit their expense sheet according to company guidelines: 'I found all the extras'

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Jesse Kessenheimer • Writer and Editor
Jan 15, 2026 10:00 AM EST

If the boss wants to get nitpicky over the expenses, so be it, just be sure that this employee wasn't going to let a dime slide out of their pocket. 

Employers don't realize how much their hardworking employees eat up their expenses. For the same reason that companies started employee unlimited PTO, bosses know that their workers will scrimp and save the company's dime at all costs, hoping to curry favor with the higher-ups. Oftentimes, this workplace penny-pinching is at the expense of the lowliest of workers, but every now and then, the workforce is given a receipts messiah, willing to go head-to-head with the big boss over company policy. 

A traveling employee recently returned from a work trip. When they submitted receipts to cover their expenses, they noticed that one evening's meal was £0.03 over their allotted budget, but because the other nights they were frugal, they thought that HR would let the pennies slide. But being the corporate machine that they were, the big boss called the employee in for questioning, refusing their entire expense report over that £0.03 cents. So when the boss urged their employee to brush up on the traveling workman's handbook, which explicitly forbade the approval of exceeded receipts, the employee obliged. 

Deep in the company handbook, they found a treasure trove of traveling expense loopholes that won them over £250 in their second expense submission. Shoving the rulebook in the face of their boss, they'd clearly won, but not before telling all of their coworkers about the money they were missing out on…

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  • Business man commuting and traveling for work, wearing a suit.
    via miodrag ignjatovic

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • Traveling for work is not as glamorous as Instagram makes it out to be. Armed with an over-packed carry-on bag, a 50% charged laptop, and a lukewarm coffee from the airport,  workers dread the day they have to travel on company time. Office employment respects an 8-hour workday, but the traveling workman is on call 24/7, waiting for their bosses to decide their next move, day or night. 

    If only there were a way that these employees could be compensated for long weekends, overnight hours, and the constant crick in their neck from a travel pillow? Alas, there is! And it's right there in the company handbook under the traveling expenses compensation section. Take a gander sometime, it might just be worth its weight in gold.

  • Angry boss refuses expense claim and tells me to read the policy for guidance.
    via Large-Meat-Feast
  • England, 2015. I was sent on a week long mandatory training course through work. I already knew the subject backwards but my boss wanted me to get the certificate to prove to upper management that his team was 100% certificated.
    via Large-Meat-Feast
  • I was told that a train ticket would be booked, as would a hotel Bed and Breakfast only. I'd have to pay for lunch and evening meals but I would be able to claim up to £5 per day for lunch and £11.72 per day for evening meals. It was a really strange value, but I could eat easily within that limit.
    via Large-Meat-Feast
  • On the last night at the hotel, my food bill was £11.75 - 3 pence more than allowed, however seeing as on the other nights I'd barely spent £10, I chanced that I could talk the
    via Large-Meat-Feast
  • finance people into approving it as the total spend would still be less than allowed for the week. The monday I returned, I completed the expense form with the receipts and handed it to my boss for approval.
    via Large-Meat-Feast
  • An hour later, I was summonned to his office. He flatly refused to sign off on the expenses as I had overspent. When I tried to explain that it was by three pence, and that on the Monday
    via Large-Meat-Feast
  • night I had actually underspent by £2.50, I was lectured as to the reason that the limits were there, and to "read the policy". He sent me back to my desk and told me to resubmit.
    via Large-Meat-Feast
  • Cue malicious compliance. I read the policy regarding expenses, then I read the staff handbook, and then my contract. As it turned out, I could claim for the following:
    via Large-Meat-Feast
  • Reasonable costs for calling my family in the evening - no receipt required.
    via Large-Meat-Feast
  • • £5 per night for being away from my family - no receipt needed. • One off £30 for being more than 3 hours travel - offered as an incentive.
    via Large-Meat-Feast
  • • ° Regardless of time spent on course, It was equivalent to 40 hours - my standard was 37. Travel to and from the venue was classed as being in work. That was overtime as it was out of hours and double for the sunday.
    via Large-Meat-Feast
  • • Friday, as I was late home, was considered an overnight stay.
    via Large-Meat-Feast
  • Young businessman in the subway on his way to work.
    via miodrag ignjatovic

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • I resubmitted, making the adjustments and highlighting the sections of the policies. Where I had expected around £75 in expenses, with the extras in the policies I claimed for an extra £100, then filled in the timesheet for the travel overtime which granted me an additional £150 or so.
    via Large-Meat-Feast
  • The boss called me back into the office and tried to tell me that he wouldn't sign off on it, but I referred him to the policies and simply told him that if he refused, I'd go above him and
    via Large-Meat-Feast
  • maybe submit a formal complaint about him. I did take great satisfaction in reminding him that if he hadn't have told me to "read the policies", then I'd have never found about all the extras.
    via Large-Meat-Feast
  • Yes, I did inform every one of my work friends. Yes, I did get all the claimed funds in my next paycheck. tl;dr; Boss refuses expenses over £0.03, I resubmit costing them more money
    via Large-Meat-Feast
  • SubjectiveAssertive £12 for evening meal even 10 years ago is bloody tight, when was that policy last updated?
    via SubjectiveAssertive
  • OP Large-Meat-Feast I don't work there any more, but the place I now work for have a £45 per evening meal expense, and £20 for lunch
    via Large-Meat-Feast
  • Help_meToo Plus I assume you read the manual and filled everything out on company time instead of doing your normal job.
    via Help_meToo
  • OP Large-Meat-Feast Of course!
    via Large-Meat-Feast
  • silverfish477 If you were going on a week long work trip you should have proactively read and been familiar with all the relevant policies anyway.
    via silverfish477
  • OP Large-Meat-Feast I don't do Proactive (it's an inside joke in the household). But you're right. I did have a passing knowledge of how much I could spend on expenses, but the rest were spread over three or four other documents.
    via Large-Meat-Feast
  • cbelt3 Classic penny wise, pound foolish. Well done. (All for thruppence !)
    via cbelt3
  • drifterlady Brilliant. I used to drive from Sevenoaks to Heathrow on Mondays for a day in Belfast once a month. My fuel claim was about £5 for a scoot around the M25. We got a new clerk in the finance office who reduced my claim to £3 because I should use the shortest route - AA Autoroute software told him I should go through the middle of London. Hmm, to get an eight o'clock flight, central London at rush hour. So, as I wasn't obliged to use my own car I decided to use public transport. Only pr
    via drifterlady
  • Bodacious Vermin The boss had to kiss goodbye that bit of power he thought that he had over you and the team. Well done.
    via Bodacious
  • Coder Joe1 Fantastic. I always encouraged my coworkers and my employees to take advantage of every single expensable item as there was no compensation for being away from their friends and families while traveling for work.
    via Coder Joe1
  • DedBirdGonna PutltOnU Ya just know OP replied three times here because they're on company time again!
    via DedBirdGonna PutltOnU
  • Plebian401 I had a store manager try to deny me reimbursement for a bridge toll to be included in my travel pay. It was three dollars. I simply told her that if she said no that she would never get anybody to come help her store out when they need it
    via Plebian401
  • Tasty-Jicama5743 My company makes this easy. Meal per-diem is automatically added in the expense report $X for Breakfast, $X for Lunch, $Y for Dinner, no receipts required. We can spend as little or as much as we want for meals on travel, and we get the same reimbursement per day no matter what.
    via Tasty-Jicama5743

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boss employee expenses malicious compliance work
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