Job Discussion Forums

[spicykimchi]

My job gives travel reimbursement - it's about 3,000 RMB every six months or something. So I've been collecting the little travel fapiao invoice thingies for a while now.

One of my coworkers isn't even close to 3,000 RMB. As a joke, he told a few friends that they should give him any spare fapiaos that they might have. Lo and behold, one of his friends gave him a huge stack of 'em - close to 9,000 RMB.

Here's the 1,000,000 RMB question: do they have dates on them or any special code that has the year on it? I don't know how long it took this friend to accumulate 9,000 RMB worth of fapiaos, but my coworker has only been at the job for about 10 weeks now. I'd hate for him to get in trouble trying to cash in on some fapiaos that might be a couple of years old.

Thanks!

[dean_a_jones]

What are they receipts for? Train tickets will clearly have dates, as will many hotel receipts. I would just look at them, it is pretty clear even in Chinese if there are dates or years on them, the characters are easy to recognise.

[Zimmer]

I'm sure they would have dates on them. Also, tickets often have your passport number on them, or if the buyer didn't use a passport a local I.D number.

Aside from that, it's just a bad idea to be trying to scam money out of people. I'd tell your friend to forget that idea.

[JamesD]

Every fapiao I have seen has a date, if it's not easy to spot it's possibly just a receipt and not a fapiao.
Whether or not they will be accepted is another matter, lots of variables regarding how they are going to be used by the accountant filing them. They could ask him to verify that all the receipts are for his own for work-related travel, they could figure he's trying to cheat them and deny any reimbursement (likely, since that is what he is doing), they could just pay the money with no hassle. Although if I had an employee who had been working for 10 weeks and handed over two year's worth of receipts it would make me wonder about his ethics.

The only hard and fast rule is when a company files their taxes the government only accepts fapiaos from that tax year. One for 2012 is no problem, a receipt dated 2011 is only good for the 2011 tax year filing.

EDIT: Second Zimmer's post. Trying to cheat your employer can't be considered a good move.

[choudoufu]

sure....you could help your friend cheat your employer.

then when he gets caught, you can complain that the evil and mean
and nasty chinese employer is taking advantage of the employees
by reducing or eliminating the travel reimbursement, or requiring
official stamped receipts bearing your passport number.

[igorG]

To my knowledge, receipts have dates on them. The issue is which receipts are and which aren't refundable as well as when they are refundable. Some accounting offices collect continuously and they set periods of time to collect from employees. So, it may not be after three, six or twelve months but after each month. Check with your accounting about the manner they want you to submit your receipts.

Moreover, there are schools/companies that require receipts to have the name of company/school on the receipt although some receipts such as taxi ones are acceptable without the name as drivers do not have the option to put anything down on the receipt.

Chinese receipts are truly ridiculous. The print out of the taxi drivers' or restaurant computers is apparently not valid for reimbursement, so the system hassles all to deal with the extra work and loads of pieces of paper that are pretty well opened up to abuse too. Perhaps, it makes sense to some that keep two accounting books which are well sorted out for business owners and authorities.

[danasoverseasemail]

[DrGrafenberg]

[/quote]

You are saying that this person has RECEIPTS and yet has no eyes to look at them for the dates?[/quote]

that's why he takes taxis everywhere...no eyes

[dean_a_jones]

[JamesD]