Related Posts
More Posts
It’s bulking season 💪🏋️♂️
Additional Posts in Accounting
Anyone else feel like the office token?
If you are starting as an Audit Associate some time from now with Deloitte or any of the big 4, do they expect you to have passed/completed all 4 parts by the time you start? Received the Becker Reimbursement email from the recruiter not too long ago but have yet to start. I’ve seen plenty of people get to Senior at a big 4 firm without the CPA so I am a bit confused in that aspect. Any helpful feedback will be very much appreciated.
You know you’re a tax accountant if.....
New to Fishbowl?
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
I pick up food from Kings on my way home all the time and have never been questioned on it. If i'm the only one working late it's hard to order delivery for one person so i will leave around 9:00 and pick something up. I've never been questioned on it but I also keep it to within $15-$20. Technically it's not onsite but if i've been in the office for almost 13 hours and i leave and don't have time to cook dinner then i'm picking it up. Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
D4 our team probably does it all the time because we are on a huge client and budget is just kind of “whatever” hahaha
I think that it's a lame rule. They should just let you use the money for whatever food you eat instead of incentivizing people to eat out every day
Buying groceries with firm money is definitely against policy. Whether people actually care or not is a different story.
you should re-take ethics training if your moto is it is easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission.
Seems crazy. You can buy a $20 dinner and expense it, but not the $6 worth of ingredients needed to make your own. What if you buy a dinner on your way home and bring it in the next day and expense it? How is that different than buying groceries to make it? If you are charging $6 for dinner while the rest of the team is charging $15, who is going to care/notice? I know a guy who (allegedly) buys Starbucks gift cards to max out his meal limit. That seems more questionable than this
The rules seem crazy but it’s because of the tax law
No
I do it all the time. I also don’t mind getting fired so it’s a win win
Depends on the store. I get OT meals from Wegmans all the time but they have takeout/food bar as well
If you bring food from home and eat at work are you not "onsite"?
Deloitte policy year round is that when you work 11 client hours or more during a day you can charge $20 for dinner as an overtime meal and overtime costs of travel and/or parking. Overtime meals are intended to be only for meals ordered in when you work overtime in the office. If you work 11 hours from home you can’t order food. If you work 11 hours and choose to go home to eat you can’t expense the cost of that home cooked meal. You pro rate and hit the client codes you worked on for that $20. The overtime meal also applies if you work at least 4 hours on a firm holiday in the office. Its relatively common practice for people to buy $20 in groceries and that is technically unethical and not allowed. Anything you buy on a corporate amex is tracked since it is a charge card and there is a way to pull an itemized receipt even if you never provide Deloitte one. You can and will get emails asking if a Walmart or Publix expense was really business not personal, though this is rare. Otherwise there is not much to prevent you from abusing the system and charging $20 at Publix for overtime meals. But whatever you expense, will hit a client code. If you’re a staff expensing multiple meals and your time doesn’t show the respective overtime hours, it will be visible to anyone who does the billing. If you’re also the only person who regular abuses the overtime policy the expenses that hit the reports under your name will show and it’s easy to see how you’re impacting the code. Since $20 is like 10 mins of an intern’s time no one should actually care. But if you are on a flat fee engagement a manager might care if you’re too heavy on a code. During busy season, most Deloitte offices cater in food for everyone for convenience and that gets allocated to all the wbs codes in the whole group. If you eat that for dinner you cannot also expense $20 on your way home for picking up groceries or $20 for lunch the next day. If the client team you are on is flexible about charging meals during busy season you run it through as a business meal, there is no $20 limit and no restriction per policy as long as it is an expense that hits a client wbs. Long story short you can expense whatever you want but it’s against policy and be prepared to pay it if it ever it doesn’t go through.
Ey7 people have 100% been fired for the Starbucks gift card thing. I work in FIDS and apparently we've done internal investigations and a shit ton of people got fired for it
Ok but what if you have dietary restrictions? That makes it that you have to prepare all your meals to ensure no things that you are allergic to make it into your disb
no
^ definitely not EY’s problem lol
Well it will be if I have to miss numerous days at work during busy seadon
You can choose consumes offsite and just pay the tax for the dinner you buy. Don’t buy groceries. Rather buy dinner for a really hungry person... and accidentally have leftovers....
Do you not have just a per diem limit? So if you work OT, you just expense a flat amount? That seems easier for everyone
Ey 8. Its directly from the tax law. This is not a big 4 policy they are trying to screw your on. At least not this time
STOP BEING WEIRD