FOI request detail

Expense and invoice management

Request ID: FOI-1823-2223
Date published: 21 November 2022

You asked
Hi there, Please could you answer some questions about how you are currently handling your spending: Expenses 1. What finance system do you use? 2. What system do you use to manage and process your staff’s expenses? 3. What is the expense submission & reimbursement process? 4. What is the current period of reimbursement (from submission) for staff expenses? 5. What is the current approval workflow for expense claims? 6. How long does it take on average to process one expense claim? 7. How many expense claims were made during your last financial year? And what was total value of expense claimed? 8. Can your staff submit expenses remotely? 9. Are staff able to submit claims on their mobile device via a dedicated application? 10. How are you claiming VAT on mileage? 11. Do your staff have to manually deduct commute distance from their mileage claim? 12. What percentage of expense claims are you auditing? 13. How many FTEs (full time employees) do you have processing expense claims? 14. Which department oversees / owns the expense processes/workflows? 15. Who is the named contact within the organisation who owns the expense process? Invoices 1. What system do you use for managing/processing invoices? 2. What is your current invoice process for handling supplier invoices, from receipt to when it is posted in the ERP/finance system and ready for payment? 3. How many invoices were processed during your last financial year? 4. How many FTEs (full time employees) do you have in your accounts payable team who process invoices? 5. What percentage of invoices were paid late during your last financial year? 6. What is the approval workflow for Invoices? 7. Who is the named contact within the organisation that decides which systems are upgraded each year? 8. Do you use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to scan invoices? 9. Do you currently have a PO system or a non-PO system? If you use both types – what is the percentage of PO invoices vs. non-PO invoices? 10. Are you claiming VAT on invoices? If so, how are you doing this?

We answered

TfL Ref: 1823-2223

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 26 October 2022 asking for information about expenses and invoice management.
 
Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy.  I can confirm that we hold the information you require. Your questions and our replies are as follows:

Please could you answer some questions about how you are currently handling your spending:

Expenses
 
    1. What finance system do you use? SAP
    2. What system do you use to manage and process your staff’s expenses? SAP
    3. What is the expense submission & reimbursement process? Employee submits claim, approved by line manager, then workflow to Employee Payments team for processing and payment
    4. What is the current period of reimbursement (from submission) for staff expenses? 7 days
    5. What is the current approval workflow for expense claims? Approved by Line Manager Pay Band 4 or above
    6. How long does it take on average to process one expense claim? 5 minutes
    7. How many expense claims were made during your last financial year? And what was total value of expense claimed? £1,345,739.40 - 16206 payments
    8. Can your staff submit expenses remotely? Yes
    9. Are staff able to submit claims on their mobile device via a dedicated application? No
    10. How are you claiming VAT on mileage? We are not claiming VAT back on mileage.
    11. Do your staff have to manually deduct commute distance from their mileage claim? No
    12. What percentage of expense claims are you auditing? 100%
    13. How many FTEs (full time employees) do you have processing expense claims? 0.5 FTE per week
    14. Which department oversees / owns the expense processes/workflows? Business Services Function (BSF)
    15. Who is the named contact within the organisation who owns the expense process? Colin Turner, Employee Payments Delivery Lead

Invoices
 
  1. What system do you use for managing/processing invoices? SAP ECC  - (ERP* Central Component) *ERP is enterprise resource planning. 
  2. What is your current invoice process for handling supplier invoices, from receipt to when it is posted in the ERP/finance system and ready for payment? Receipt through dedicated email address, through to allocation to Accounts Payable (AP) team who input the invoices on SAP to be paid. EDI (Electronic Data Interface) for some high-volume suppliers.
  3. How many invoices were processed during your last financial year? 232,070
  4. How many FTEs (full time employees) do you have in your accounts payable team who process invoices? 16.6 FTE
  5. What percentage of invoices were paid late during your last financial year? Please see the Government’s own website for this information at the following link which gives the published information as to when we pay our invoices: https://www.gov.uk/check-when-businesses-pay-invoices. In accordance with section 21 of the FOI Act, we are not obliged to supply you with a copy of the requested information as it is already accessible to you elsewhere.
  6. What is the approval workflow for Invoices? For Purchase Orders (POs), if specified goods receipt (3 way match), 2 way match with approval by budget holder otherwise. For Non PO approval by budget holder.
  7. Who is the named contact within the organisation that decides which systems are upgraded each year? Vince Tooke, Senior Product Manager
  8. Do you use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to scan invoices? No
  9. Do you currently have a PO system or a non-PO system? If you use both types – what is the percentage of PO invoices vs. non-PO invoices. We have both.  The figures requested are 72% PO, 28% non-PO.
  10. Are you claiming VAT on invoices? If so, how are you doing this?  TfL reclaims VAT on invoices where it is legally entitled to do so and meets all relevant conditions e.g. upon receipt of a valid VAT invoice from the supplier.  The purchase invoice is processed through TfL’s SAP accounts payable system and the VAT then reclaimed via a 4 weekly VAT return submission to HMRC.





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Yours sincerely


Sara Thomas
FOI Case Management Team
General Counsel
Transport for London

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