Year 23 You've just come back from a sales trip with Jose, your Sales Manager Trainer. He introduced you to clients in your new territory. It was 10, 14-hour days but your laptop is filled with vital information about each of your clients and some potential ones as well. On Monday at your desk you start tallying up the expenses of your trip. Jose gave you a corporate charge card so there shouldn't be much as far as receipts for any non-credit card expenditures. You go through your bits of paper and add them up but it doesn't match your real cash outlays for the trip. As you start to make a list of your non-receipt cash outlays (cabs and tips = $65, airport porters = $45, shuttle tips = $15, hotel bell person tips = $35, valet tips = $25, concierge = $40, miscellaneous = $50) you realize you've spent $275. No receipts mean no proof for reimbursement purposes. For some people, $275 may be nothing but you realize that over a year this could add up to a minimum of 10% of your pay. That doesn't include the thousands of dollars you've already spent on clothes and accessories for your job.

That afternoon you overhear two new people like yourself talk about the same problems. "I thought I was getting a great deal with this job but the clothes and cash I'm spending that I can't get receipts for is killing me," relied one. "Well," said the other. "When I talked to my trainer he told me to just increase other items so that I can get back what the company owes me. For example, if I get into a cab, he told me to always get a few more receipts. Cabbies know the system and always give blanks that you can fill out later. My trainer also told me to pay for meals with the charge card and get two tickets so you can inflate the tips. She said it was called the claw back effect." As you listen they mention several other ways to claw back honest business-related expenses. As you listen to the others, you discover what the usual amounts to pay waiters (> 25%), baggage handlers, hotel personnel, and others are.

It's 4:30 (30 minutes left) and the expense report must be handed in today. While in thought, you discover a number of blank cab receipts and a number of meal charge card receipts. You've also looked for Jose to ask him his opinion, but he's gone for the day. The next day you ask Bob, another Sales Manager, about the non-receipt cash outlays and how he handles them. Bob explains, "Yes, that's become a very big issue because the people we tip survive on the extra we give. It's hard to live on $15,000 a year (typical income after taxes). I know some sales people make sure they get everything reimbursed; some go with a partial claw back. For me personally, it's not a big deal because of my pay package." That night your friend asks, "How was work?" "I might have made a mistake with my travel receipts for the week," you say. "Well, I hope you didn't do anything to screw things up for yourself at Acme. Good jobs like you have are hard to come by in this city," was the reply.

What would you do?