re: How Would You Handle? Employee spends too much on company card. But is top producer...

The thread title literally says it’s on the company card.

How does that work?

I've had both company card and per diems.

Company card was always expense account/report and per diem was always direct deposit flat rate into my personal account.

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my response would probably depend on the revenue the guy was bringing in, I have a friend that was a neighbor of mine in FL, entrepreneur, has a global business that has done very well, he has three salesmen that he pays more than he pays himself because the revenues they bring to the company are so huge, obviously they have more latitude when it comes to expense accounts than a lower level employee doing more mundane tasks

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About once every year or so, I get a call from a company that has a sexual harassment issue that requires (due to policy) an employee to be fired, but the employee is a key salesperson who brings a ton of money into the company. In several cases, firing the employee would require the company to layoff employees. The usual answer is to find a way to work around the firing (and to rewrite the policy to make it clear that employment termination is never mandatory).

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the employee is a key salesperson who brings a ton of money into the company. In several cases, firing the employee would require the company to layoff employees. The usual answer is to find a way to work around the firing (and to rewrite the policy to make it clear that employment termination is never mandatory).

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interesting, now there's an entirely different angle to the old "if they don't meet the standards, lower the standards!" adage

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Company card was always expense account/report and per diem was always direct deposit flat rate into my personal account.

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That's how it should be. If it's all run through the company card it's going to be hell reconciling actual spending to the per diem amount and then paying that out to the employees. If that's what he's doing and not paying the balance he's running an expense through his books that's not actually an expense.

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nail his old lady,

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this mildly reminds me of one instance i had with the company CC that got me in trouble.

i had to go to Mesquite, TX to troubleshoot some large network issues. I left my house at 3 AM to get there at 5 AM and worked from 5 AM to 7 PM without a break for lunch.

fixed it, and had to fly out the next day to the valley. i was beat and went to the hotel. this was before uber eats or door dash, so i just wanted to go to something in walking distance. my option were chilis, BWW, and a skank haven called Bikini's. it was march madness so BWW was full forever and Chilis had an hour wait time. bikinis had 2 cars in front.

we're a very small company and my boss' wife is the accounts lady so she looks at everything and everyone that works for us is a christian. we can do some drinking but anything like a hooters is a big no go. i call my boss and explain my situation and tell him i'm going to the bikini's due to the wait. he knew i had been busting it, so he said it was fine, just behave myself and watch basketball. i did as such. told my wife as well, just to cover my bases.

the next day after i land, my boss calls and tells me his wife was reviewing the CC and was ready to tear into my arse for going to some place called bikinis and after looking it up, knew i went against company policy. he fortunately covered for me and laughed at how predictable that was going to play out.

perks and curses of working for a small company.

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Last night he dropped $250 at high end steak house for dinner alone.

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Nice.

Just let him know you aren't going to make an issue of it, but that you will have to more closely monitor his expenses going forward and that he should be sticking pretty close to the allowance unless there is a business reason for going over.

Also, not sure how you handle expense reporting, but you can systematically change processes that mitigate this risk. For example, simply only allow up to $125 (or $150 if you want to allow flexibility) to be reimbursed, regardless of how much was submitted. Some software won't even allow someone to submit an expense over an established threshold.

No clue what you do or how your business operates, but industries exist to allow companies to enforce policies without having to micromanage.

On a personal note, if he's really tripling his colleagues, I'd never think about it again unless he started slipping. Hard to find allstars these days. And allstars know it.

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Hard to find allstars these days. And allstars know it.

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this, I've been on both sides of this table a few times and have seen some obscene excess, people, especially in sales, seemed to take their liberties when they're on someone else's dime

If this thread is of any indication of how business is run in Louisiana then I see why it is such a backwards deplorable state lol. Let’s just promote corruption and bad business practices because he’s my bro dude mentality.