Dilemma with Expense Receipts being turned in...

While reading, please keep in mind that this is a publicly traded company if that matters.

Some background:
So I finally turned in my expense reports for 2016 and of course I got chewed out by my boss for waiting till the end of the year to turn everything in. Please keep in mind this was a whopping 1200 bucks.

Anyway, employees who travel on a regular basis turn in their items every week but for employees who don't (I hardly expense anything), we can turn them in every month, two months, whenever. The moral here is that nothing has ever been said in many years past if we turned in expenses many months late. All that was ever stressed was that you had to turn in all receipts by a certain date in January in order to be paid for expenses the previous year.

Sorry for the long read here but fast forward to today. I get a phone call from our new divisional VP and he wants to know why I waited so long to turn in my expenses. I told him the same thing I told my boss. "I put the receipts in a folder and forgot about them. I dont spend alot so its not like a 50-250 dollar check was immediately on my mind". He then proceeds to say that he doesnt think the company should pay me back. At this point, Im thinking WTF do you mean you dont want to pay me back? He says that accounting wants approval before cutting the check but he is going to send it up the ladder to get approval. I told him that whoever needs to call me can do so and I'll explain just like I did to you that I forgot about them. If someone feels the need to chew me out, thats fine if it makes them feel better as long as I get my money. I followed every policy available to me and turned in my receipts well before the second week of January.

So my question is this. How far would you take this if an a-hole presented this to you at work? Im obviously not going to do anything to lose my job over 1200 bucks but I'll be damned if Im just going to let this be up to him. Ive checked our handbook and there is nothing at all that states anything about when to turn in expenses. Ive made it very clear that I'll turn in my expenses on a monthly basis but I'll be damned if you are able to just make up shite as you go along.


TLDR: waited to turn in expenses for 2016 and now a-hole manager decides out of blue, he doesnt want to approve them even though there isnt a policy in handbook on when this has to be done.