Oyster card and expenses

[Bexter]

I've often wondered the same thing myself! I use top-up that I pay for personally (Cause I use it for personal journeys, very occassionally), and I know that into work and back is something like £5.90 for return journey, so for each day I invoice my client, I charge my expenses £5.90. On the very odd occasion I work from home or am on holiday, I just don't charge for that.

I keep a receipt for every top up, but don't print out the actual journeys I make, wondering now if maybe I should? I only spend about £100 a month on travel, so in many ways, it feels like more work/effort to sort the receipts than the actual money it saves me! Or maybe I'm just a bit lazy with my paperwork.

[oversteer]

You know you can get an emailed statement? You go to Help, Complaints, Oyster, Statement or something like that, put in your card number and they email you a few days later. I just do that every couple of weeks.

Bike hire statements, now that one's harder to manage

[matzie]

This thread reminded me that I was overdue to collect my Oyster journey history report - and I discovered that the interface has changed - now there is no "show me everything" option, only a week-by-week select element, which is pretty inconvenient if you ask me. Fortunately you can still get to the old interface and they are inviting feedback, so I'll ask for a wider date range to be available for the likes of us.

...and sadly (but reassuringly, I guess) they aren't using naive cgi parameters so we can't just fiddle with "datestart" and "dateend"... they just have option values 1 through to 7 for each of the preceeding weeks, or -1 for the last week... so I think we should all fill in their feedback form!

[craig1]

The report out of TFL is U-G-L-Y and to this dumb northerner, damned complicated!!

It's ugly and fairly user-unfriendly but it's the official printout format meaning it's far less of a hassle if there's a HMRC expenses audit.

[SneakySimon]

Oyster Card

I roughly spend £80 per month on the tube – Kings Cross to London Bridge.

I Just stick it all on auto-top-up through my company and then, like my mileage log, write up the journeys (which are generally the same each day!).

Looked at getting a travelcard and they are only really of value to tourists who will be using the tube repeatedly in the day.

The report out of TFL is U-G-L-Y and to this dumb northerner, damned complicated!!

[ee61re]

Edit: Also, not sure if you're aware but you can put travelcards on Oyster cards if you're intending to spend that much money.

I looked into the cost of an oyster travelcard compared to auto topup / PAYG, compared to adding a TravelCard onto a national rail ticket.

Can't recall the specifics, but lets just say I found that you would need to make a LOT of oyster journeys to make their travelcard cost effective - e.g. 3 or 4 journeys each day, 7 days a week.

[kingcook]

Be aware, TFL only keeps records for eight weeks, that's why I ensure I print a monthly statement. Leave it any longer than that and you might have a hard time explaining Oyster card usage if there's a query.

Cool.

Also, not sure if you're aware but you can put travelcards on Oyster cards if you're intending to spend that much money.

My bad... "a few weeks" should be "10 weeks"

[craig1]

I'd never use it for personal journeys.

Thinking about it, my ltd co's bank account would show £40 every few weeks, so i suppose option (a) would be best for me.

Cheers for the info on the print out of journeys/deductions. I suppose there would be no harm in printing this off at every top-up for the records.

Be aware, TFL only keeps records for eight weeks, that's why I ensure I print a monthly statement. Leave it any longer than that and you might have a hard time explaining Oyster card usage if there's a query.

Edit: Also, not sure if you're aware but you can put travelcards on Oyster cards if you're intending to spend that much money.

[kingcook]

I'd never use it for personal journeys.

Thinking about it, my ltd co's bank account would show £40 every few weeks, so i suppose option (a) would be best for me.

Cheers for the info on the print out of journeys/deductions. I suppose there would be no harm in printing this off at every top-up for the records.

[craig1]

You can go on the TFL website and get a list of journeys and deductions. I simply print this off at the end of a month and claim it as an expense. I top up the card from my personal account and treat it as a receipted cash expenditure (edit: a clarification, the journeys and deductions printout is claimed, not the top-up).

I'd suggest you treat it the same way unless you're 100% sure you're never going to use it for personal use.

[kingcook]

Daft question that i think i already know the answer to, just need to confirmation.

I'll be getting an Oyster card shortly and using it for LU travel, topping up with £40 every few weeks (from the Ltd Co's debit card)

WRT company expenses, do i just list a claim for (a) £40 every few weeks, or (b) for every journey i make with the Oyster card (£1.90).

Thinking (a) ?