- List all your personal expenses on your expense report, even if they go over the per diem. At the end of the year, when you do your income taxes, you will need records of (1) the amount your employer paid you per diem and (2) the total amount you paid out for road expenses. You can probably deduct the road expenses that your employer didn't pay on your income tax form. (Remember: The laws regarding what you can deduct kind of deductions, amount of deductions, etc. - change just about every year in this country, so check with the IRS every year to see what you can take as allowable deductions.)
- Your employer may want you to keep personal expenses on a separate expense report from truck expenses and hauling expenses. That way, it may be easier for the company to figure out what they need to reimburse you for.
Some companies don't use the per diem system. Instead, they reimburse you at the end of each trip for all reasonable out-of-pocket expenses. They will reimburse you whether you paid with cash or personal credit cards either once a month or at the end of each trip. Some companies will have you use company credit cards for some major expenses. However, fewer and fewer companies are giving their drivers company credit cards. Why? The system sounds effective enough, and it might have been. The problem was, too many drivers abused the system. Because of that abuse, trucking companies don't use company cards as much as they used to.
If the company you work for uses the reimbursement system, you'll pay for things on the road in a combination of four ways.
(1) You'll pay things - personal, truck related and miscellaneous hauling expenses - with credit cards, either cards in the company name or your own personal credit cards. It just doesn't make good sense for a driver to carry around a lot cash. You'll probably have a couple of major credit cards such as Visa® and American Express®. Then you'll have fuel credit cards for fuel and service to the vehicles.
(2) Second, your company may provide company accommodations. In other words, your company may have charge systems worked out with motel chains or may provide company- owned houses. Let's take a moment to talk about these arrangements.
In recent years, trucking companies have been looking for creative ways to reduce the cost of keeping their drivers on the road. One of the most common ways of reducing costs is to establish stopover points for drivers. This system works especially well when drivers are on a steady line run. (A consistent run between two points, such as Chicago to L.A. or New York to San Francisco.)
One way of establishing stopover points is to purchase blocks of motel rooms. Let's look at an example of how the stopover point system works. One driver arrives at the motel at 6 p.m. on May 8th. He has dinner, then sleeps until 3:30 in the morning on May 9th. At 6:00 a.m., another driver arrives and uses the same room from 6:15 until 3:00 in the afternoon. Another driver arrives at 3:30 p.m. and sleeps until 11:30 p.m. All three drivers used the same room, thus keeping costs down for the trucking company.
Upon arrival, each driver signs in with name and company name. That gives the motel a record of how much the trucking company used the motel. Then, at the end of the month, the motel bills the trucking company for number of rooms used, number of drivers using the motel or for a flat fee which the motel pre-arranged with the trucking company. Some motels and trucking companies even use a yearly flat fee.
Another way of establishing stopover points is for the company to purchase a house which all drivers use when they are in the area. This system works well in remote areas where there are no suitable motels or where no motels offer blocks of rooms for truckers. The house normally employs a regular housekeeper, so all the driver has to do when she or he gets there is rest.
(3) Another means of avoiding paying with either cash or credit cards is the use of fuel islands. These are fuel pumps owned by oil companies. They dispense fuel only through the use of keys. Only authorized individuals can get fuel from these pumps because they are the only ones to have keys for them. Sometimes the pumps are in remote areas (such as off- highway in the desert) quite hidden from the general population. Sometimes they are right in the city. They may be underground. The driver pulls up to the pump and inserts a key. The key is coded to show who used the pump and inserts a digital meter inside records how much fuel was dispensed, when, and to whom. At the end of the month, the trucking company gets a readout showing exactly who used the pump, when, and how much fuel was obtained. It's a good system. One that's hard to abuse. Say, for example, a driver decides to fill up her personal car at the pump. The digital meter will show the unauthorized use and the driver will have some hard questions to answer. How will it show unauthorized use? First, a car or pickup truck would probably draw only 15 to 20 gallons; whereas, a truck might take 150 to 200 gallons. Second, the time and date of the fill-up would not jive with a run. Third, the miles/gallon of fuel use would be all off. All three of these things would make the trucking company suspicious, and they would know who to blame because each time a key is inserted, a computer readout is generated under that key code at a central terminal. So the lesson is, don't try to abuse the fuel island system. It's not worth losing your job over.
(4) Small expenses, such as phone calls, scales and tolls will usually have to be paid in cash. Be sure to record these on your expense report and get receipts. These little expenses can add up.
