NFRS 2022 59 - Expenses
You asked for:
Please could you answer some questions about how you are currently handing your spending:
Expenses
- What finance system do you use?
- What system do you use to manage and process your staff’s expenses?
- What is the expense submission & reimbursement process?
- What is the current period of reimbursement (from Submission) for staff expenses?
- What is the current approval workflow for expense claims?
- How long does it take on average to process one expense claim?
- How many expense claims were made in FY21/22 and what was total value of expense claimed in FY21/22?
- Can your staff submit expenses remotely via mobile?
- Are staff able to submit claims on their mobile device?
- How are you claiming VAT on mileage? Do your staff have to deduct commute from mileage manually?
- What percentage of expense claims are you auditing?
- How many FTEs (full time employees) do you have processing expense claims?
- What is the average time to reimburse your staff’s expenses?
- Which department oversees / owns the expense processes/workflows?
- Who is the named contact within the organisation who owns the expense process?
- Are there direct data integrations for expense spend directly into your main finance system? Alternatively, are they bulk uploaded via JPEG etc.?
Invoices
- What system do you use for managing/processing invoices?
- 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?
- How many invoices were processed in FY21/22?
- How many FTEs (full time employees) do you have in your accounts payable team who process invoices?
- What percentage of invoices were paid late in FY21/22?
- What is the approval workflow for Invoices?
- Who is the named contact within the organisation that decides which systems are upgraded each year?
- Do you use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to scan invoices?
- 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?
- Are you claiming VAT on invoices? If so, how are you doing this in-house?
Our Response:
Answer: - This information is not recorded in an easily retrievable format. To locate, retrieve and extract the requested information requires a manual search of all records held, we would have to examine every single email within the service for the time period. This is because it is not an automated process. Any claim submitted comes via a scanned paper form authorised by a line manager and submitted to the finance department. We’d therefore need to dive into email data centres to locate those claims submitted, including those rejected at the line management authorisation stage. In all cases, any claims submitted for payment would be sent in the first instance to the line manager. claims should then be forwarded to payroll by the line manager/budget holder as a form of authorising the claim being made. We’d need to isolate from our workforce who was a line manager within the time period as positions change over time and manually extract the data from the email data centres. Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service handles hundreds of emails per month, to search for the requested information within the time period specified would certainly exceed the cost threshold.
This letter constitutes a refusal notice under Section 17(5) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 with Section 12(1) of the act being applied.
12. – (1) Section 1(1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.
Should you wish for the Force to continue with your request, a more accurate figure will be provided within a fee’s notice. The cost will need to be paid by you, prior to any further investigation. Please advise if you wish to proceed.
Alternatively, you are invited to refine your request to bring it within the cost threshold, due to how the information is stored I am unable to suggest a reasonable refinement that would bring the request within the cost threshold.
In accordance with the Act, once one part of the request exceeds the cost threshold the entire request exceeds the cost threshold. However, in the spirit of the Act but outside of Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Services has provided what information it has retrieved in relation to your request.
This letter constitutes a refusal notice under Section 17 (5) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
- What finance system do you use?
Answer: - Agresso.
- What system do you use to manage and process your staff’s expenses?
Answer: - iTrent.
- What is the expense submission & reimbursement process?
Answer: - Authorised via email and paid through payroll.
- What is the current period of reimbursement (from Submission) for staff expenses?
Answer: - Next pay date or if urgent within 3 days.
- What is the current approval workflow for expense claims?
Answer: - Scanned in paper form, authorised by line manager then emailed to payroll.
- How long does it take on average to process one expense claim?
Answer: - no information held, we do not record this type of information.
- How many expense claims were made in FY21/22 and what was total value of expense claimed in FY21/22?
Answer: - £208,164.94.
- Can your staff submit expenses remotely via mobile?
Answer: - No.
- Are staff able to submit claims on their mobile device?
Answer: - No.
- How are you claiming VAT on mileage? Do your staff have to deduct commute from mileage manually?
Answer: Our staff deduct commute from mileage manually.
- What percentage of expense claims are you auditing?
Answer: - no information held, we do not record this type of information. Internal audits are undertaken periodically, external audits review system and batch test as necessary form part of annual audit of statement of accounts.
- How many FTEs (full time employees) do you have processing expense claims?
Answer: - 1 FTE.
- What is the average time to reimburse your staff’s expenses?
Answer: - one month.
- Which department oversees / owns the expense processes/workflows?
Answer: - Finance.
- Who is the named contact within the organisation who owns the expense process?
Answer: - Head of Finance, Becky Smeathers.
- Are there direct data integrations for expense spend directly into your main finance system? Alternatively, are they bulk uploaded via JPEG etc.?
Answer: - Bulk uploaded.
Invoices
- What system do you use for managing/processing invoices?
Answer: - Agresso.
- 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?
Answer: - Invoice is received in Finance, entered into Agresso and sent for approval via the Workflow, once approved the invoice is paid intime for the due date.
- How many invoices were processed in FY21/22?
Answer: - 5735
- How many FTEs (full time employees) do you have in your accounts payable team who process invoices?
Answer: - 1.8 FTE
- What percentage of invoices were paid late in FY21/22?
Answer: - 5%
- What is the approval workflow for Invoices?
Answer: - Please refer to the attached image under Appendix A
- Who is the named contact within the organisation that decides which systems are upgraded each year?
Answer: - Reviewed as part of capital programme.
- Do you use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to scan invoices?
Answer: - No.
- 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?
Answer: - PO system.
- Are you claiming VAT on invoices? If so, how are you doing this in-house?
Answer: - Yes and Yes.