Question:

Please ask the CEDA members how they deal with the engineers in regards to the below please?

*How do other companies deal with engineers parking costs. Does your company have something in place to pay for this on the engineers’ behalf or do you re-imburse your engineers upon receipt of a expenses claim form?

*How do your engineers record parking to pass the charges back on to a customer and ensure it isn’t missed/forgotten about?

We seem to be having an issue with the engineers forgetting to add parking to their job sheets and even though they are given a £50 float? I’m assuming other members have a more reliable way of dealing with this issue?

Replies:

1. One we use is Corporate ring go.
2. We use a wide variety of parking apps like Ringo, My Permit, Pay By Phone – some are corporate log ins, all very useful.
   For the engineers who expense cash parking there’s we have an expense claim form they send in monthly against a specific job number – reimbursed in month.
   Most importantly we have a mandatory question within our electronic forms
   – Have you paid for parking Yes/No
   – How much (0.00)
   This is added to the invoice at billing stage
3. No, we run something similar – a £50 cash float. Engineers bring in the receipt (with the clients name on) we charge out and reimburse the engineer. In reality, we don’t get the receipts on a daily basis, but it works for us.
4. We use a ringo/PayByPhone corporate account. Each engineer is Setup and can only pay their allocated vehicles. Very easy to set up online and you can allocate 1 credit card to the entire account.
5. We are experiencing a sharp rise in parking charges too.
   Our engineers use Ringo or similar (where available), they register themselves with Ringo but it enables them to email an electronic receipts into the office immediately after parking, and access any receipts at a later date.
   They put the job number and site on the email.
   They then send an expenses claim form at the end of each week which should match up with their receipts.
   The engineers are asked to enter the parking charge on their PDA when closing each individual job down and enter in the parts used column.
   Although this works 95% of the time it is down to the engineers ensuring they enter the charge details on their job but by requesting the engineers email the receipt into the office after each job, prompts us in the office to check the parking charge is on the job and focuses the engineer they must follow this procedure or it may affect their expenses claim.
6. The way forward is to ensure all engineers have centrally controlled parking apps on their phone, on the basis over 50% of jobs now incur parking it needs to be automated.
   We do provide engineers with a float but I can’t recall  cash payments for parking.
   Our engineers are on a global tracker so our co coordinators and our FM system knows where they are, this  records to the job, however by setting up Apps, Ringo most popular, Pay by Phone and various local council apps, the engineer automatically registers parking, , when you park , open the app, it reads parking location,  tick and follow prompts, ie van reg, duration etc, all goes back to a central account, the account can be linked to a global tracker, if you don’t have that luxury, then old school, referencing is required by co coordinators. However, you know there is always a 50/50% chance a charge is required.
   In respect of clients, some don’t like being charged some accept without issue. Our quotes show parking on the same basis as VAT, IE
   The quote shows service cost which has a footnote, this cost excludes VAT, Parking & Congestion will be charged at cost.
   If we have client that don’t accept addition charges ( usually FM Companies ) they must be set up on a higher hourly or callout tariff, the cost to put a van in London will average at about £75 a day, therefore £10 per hour must be added to then Tariff.
   To be honest, clients don’t realise the premium service providers have to  pay to undertake visits,  they are very quick to comment on how expensive the  Tariff is ,  perhaps a little reminder on social media is applicable , the unseen cost of a service visit.   London congestion has risen disproportionately, Ulez has expanded, the hours of charge on both congestion and parking have expanded to 7am from 9am and 5pm to 6 pm, Saturday are now chargeable, in short even early morning work or Saturday work, we can’t visit for free, the implications are massive. Clients who have business on prime locations benefit from footfall, they can’t have it both ways, associated cost are chargeable or the service will disappear.
7. Our engineers pay the parking, add it work the job sheet, as a backup take a photo of the ticket and post to our WhatsApp group or by e-mail to finance.  They will then be reimbursed with payment of monthly wages, so it is within their interest to remember to claim it!
8. We just charge this out at cost. We have also had the same conversation, so would be interesting to know what other people say. We also have the same issues with congestion and Ulez charges. Our callout costs don’t include the charges, and sometimes for hard-to-reach places in London we see charges of up to £40 for parking!
9. Our Engineers have always claimed parking on their weekly expenses & where possible backed up with parking receipts.
   Due to the wide geographical area we generally know roughly how much & try to wrap it up in the call-out charge but in the city centre it knocks up outside costing & results in a subsequent discussion but it’s all about attention to detail.
   Customers don’t like to see it itemised.
   I liken our profitability to a colander in respect of Engineers forgetting to include Parts, Parking, consumables (we make a flat charge for consumables on all service invoices & inclusion of parking could be included here).
10. We don’t employ engineers directly however, at my previous company the normal method was to reimburse the engineer at the end of the month when they send their timesheets in, we added an expenses section on the bottom showing things like parking charges etc. If that wasn’t acceptable to the engineer, they’d submit it weekly via an email.
    Now and again, we’ll check that the claim matched their trackers for the period being claimed for which would police the system quite well. If it was an area where there was an option to pay by phone upon arrival, they simply rang in, and the office made the payment and confirmed it with the engineer. The parking charge was then added to the job sheet for invoicing purposes.
    Simple way is to add a field “expenses” on their reporting system so it generates the info at the time of the visit.
    As I said above, the only way to do it is to put in a visible reminder. When we had a paper system it was simply a box that would be ticked – the ticket would be added to the timesheets if available when submitted. When we moved to electronic a drop-down box would appear before you could leave the screen asking if there were additional items such as sundry items (fixings) or parking etc.
    Personally, I’d remove the £50 float to start with, if it’s their money being used, I get the feeling that they won’t forget so easily to leave it off the job sheet.
11. We register engineers and their vehicles on the most popular parking apps, Ringo, Just Park, Pay4Parking etc which have business accounts that way engineers aren’t out of pocket especially in London and other city centres and the engineer has the option on his job to add expenses ie parking.
12. We currently have parking charges on our system as a spare part. When an engineer completes the job, they add the parking as a part, which is invoiced to the customer. The engineer then claims the money back through an expense form.
13. With regards to parking, our engineers either pay cash and add the charge to their worksheet for invoicing or if we are quoting for works then we add the charge.
14. As you know we operate 60 vans so we do have long standing procedures in place.
    • Our engineers also have a £50 float for the now rare occasions that they have to use cash.
    • We have corporate accounts for Dartford Tnl, RingGO, JustPark, PayByPhone, EasyPark and some smaller regional systems.
    • We use Allstar Fuel cards that can also act for Toll roads such as M6 toll. This card can be used in almost all Petrol Stations and eliminates the need for numerous cards.
    • Most of our customer require nationwide rates that include: Parking, Tolls, Congestion and Ferries. So our “Call Out charge” includes an average of those charges and then an hourly rate.

    Additionally, we do not buy or lease our vans, they are on hire and come sign written, with Dashcams and tracking. They are serviced outside the engineer’s house at 8am so that the engineer can then continue with his days work, and we have 7 day cover with a replacement van supplied if required.

15. Each of our engineers has a credit card (Capital on Tap) which they use to pay for their fuel, parking charges, and non-supplier purchases. They supply receipts for each purchase made on their card, which are then reconciled against the card. Expenditure can be monitored on a daily basis so that nothing is missed if the engineers forget to let us know.
    Each card is limited, and expenditure closely monitored. The total is paid weekly/fortnightly or monthly (you choose) so there are no additional charges.
    Parking is recorded on the job sheet and is added to the invoice.
    We have used them for over a year, and it has worked very well for us as the costs are closely controlled.