There are many things I find interesting about this place which I've included in the "Interesting observations" post but I thought that I should dedicate a special rant to the expense report.
I'll first begin with how my expense reports worked in the United States.
At the US Firm I had an American Express card. I used this card for all Firm expenses - if I had to book a flight, pay for a hotel, eat meals while out of town, take a client to lunch, bring in bagels or donuts for the team, etc. These purchases would then appear in my "buffer" which was located in my on-line expense reporting tools. I would allocate these costs to the correct projects and I would file away my receipts in case they were ever required. The only time I had to provide a receipt to our expense report department was for hotel bills (to make sure that we did not charge "movies" to clients) and also for out of pocket expenses exceeding $25. The Firm then paid Amex and everything was OK.
The Russian expense report (and "business trip" process) is completely another animal.
I do not have a credit card. We have a "cash advance" card which acts as a debit card. Before every trip we must determine how much money we think we will need and request approval from a manager or partner for approval. The money will then be loaded onto the card within a few days.
The flights are paid for by the Firm through our travel department - this is quite convenient, but the only convenient part about the flight. We are issued a "business trip" form which has some writing, stamps, and signatures from the Firm on it. We have to present this to the client and they put some stamps and signatures on the form as well. In addition to providing this with my expense report I must include my boarding passes, e-ticket receipt or paper ticket with the expense report when submitting. There is also a form which I must complete on my own acknowledging that I was to go on the business trip.
We do receive a per diem and this is adjusted depending on what city within Russia you are visiting. I'm quite thankful for the per diem because it would be a disaster to keep all of the receipts which are required in order to be reimbursed for an expense.
Hotels are also either paid for by the Firm or client for the most part, but if not this can be tricky to predict how much cash you will need. For some reason we are not required to turn in a receipt for the hotel if it's paid by someone else (my guess is that someone the hotel provides it directly to the Firm or the client as nothing happens without paper in Russia).
If we have a "social event" such as a team or client dinner an additional form must be prepared and have partner approval for the expense in order for the expense to be reimbursed.
In addition to all of these items, you actually have to fill out an expense report within our time and expense reporting system as well. This form is actually quite similar to the expense reporting system I used in the US and it works rather well.
I always keep copies of everything because a day or two after submitting an expense report (which is approved by partner, director, or manager depending on value) I will inevitably receive an email from the finance department that something is missing. Often I did forget to include something because there are so many things to pass along, but they are very diligent in their job in the expense department.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Tinkoff's
Tinkoff is one of my regular weekend destinations. It's a bar which brews its own beer - there's a selection of beers which are always on tap and they also have seasonal beverages - these tend to be my preference as I like to mix it up a little bit. Expats from work meet at Tinkoff on a regular basis, often on Friday evenings but not my typical 5pm happy hour from home - this is Russia - we have to work until at least 6 on Friday as that's what is written in our contract.
There are tall tables off to the right of the bar, about 3 meters long - I inevitably always find myself at one of these with all of the other expats - it almost feels like Cheers, except no one that works there knows my name.
There is a special for 999 roubles to have all of the beer you can drink. I often say to myself, "that would require me to drink six 0.5 liter beers (just .7 liters shy of a gallon) to make it worth my while." There are few times where this wouldn't have been worth my while - I really don't understand why I never just do it - maybe I feel like I would have to drink even more, but no one else ever seems interested in taking up this challenge.
(sorry - I usually don't take my camera out with me and was not even able to Google many pictures)
Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk
Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk is the primary city in the southern part of Sakhalin island which is north of Japan (I found it impressive to fly east for over 9 hours and remain in the same country). I spent most of the month of January working here thanks to America's favorite liquid - oil. The area once belonged to Japan but the Russians were able to take control of the full island after one of the major wars - Wikipedia can provide a bit more detail if you are truly interested. Sakhalin island now has two major oil projects: Sakhalin 1 whose majority ownership is Exxon and Sakhalin 2 in which Shell was once the majority owner - luckily the government of Russia decided that after Shell had done most of the capital investment that Russia would like the state-owned Gazprom to own 51% of the project.
Sakhalin island is quite a nice place and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk is located almost in a valley between the mountains. It was very beautiful with snow everywhere on the mountains. There were also "suburbs" where the expats from the oil companies live which reminded me of America. It did not take long though to realize that it was not America - that's not such a big problem though as I do enjoy my time here in Russia.
I had the opportunity to go skiing some on the weekends with some of the team members because there was a good amount of snow and there were days where we got over 6 (about 15 centimeters for you metric buffs) inches of the white stuff. The first place we tried was not so difficult - a straight slope similar to the Wagner trail at Seven Springs. The problem is that there's a tow-rope (actually a "T-bar") which pulls you the whole way up the slope - it gets quite tiring near the top. There's a great view as well (see pictures below).
The second time we went skiing on the easy slope I decided I would snowboard since the hill was not that much of a challenge on skis. I had never snowboarded though and I definitely have an appreciation for how difficult it is now. Taking the tow-rope up the hill was a disaster - the first two times I tried I made it about 50 yards (45 meters) and fell over. I had a teammate on skis take one side of the bar as I held onto her the next two times to get all the way to the top - it was just so much pain pulling on my leg while going up. I would go a bit down the hill, try to turn into the mountain (facing it) and fall. After falling it would take a few tries to get back up and off down the hill to fall again. I made a vow to myself to never snowboard again.
We also went to a larger mountain one weekend with a gondola type lift which was very cool. The slope was really challenging though and I felt out of control often but never fell - thanks to the skis probably.
The company we were auditing had a nice employee cafeteria with decent food for lunch everyday. Dinner was often a different story. Out of town in Russia we receive a per diem - most team members prefer to buy food at the grocery store in order to pocket the extra money. I did this about half of the time since everyone else was and a few times had dinner at the hotel. (I'll post a separate blog on expense reports in Russia.)
The hotel (Strawberry Hills) also had a nice gym which was great since I did no exercise for the full three weeks I was back home in the States over Christmas. It was interesting though at the hotel gym since I always paid a different price. The first few times I went it was 200 roubles, and then one night I had to pay 350 roubles, and then 400 roubles, one time it was 437.50 roubles, sometimes 450 roubles - it was all dependent upon what time of the day I went, not so much on time as I always try to stick to about an hour. I figure these price variations must be due to my lack of understanding the Russian language.
(NO! - I did not see Sarah Palin.)
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