Payroll advance for company related expenses

Just to clarify! These monies are NOT income! The company has to keep track of all outgoing funds. A person sitting in operations can't just send you a comcheck/EFS code and forget about it. The way their systems are set up the money is given to you the driver. @bryan21384 said it best, you don't send in that receipt and you will see a photo of that money as a deduction. When I was active I kept all my bills and things like CAT scale and lumper receipts in a zipped up folder with my transflo scan sheets. As soon as I could I sit in my truck sleeper and scanned them and finally sent them in via the internet.

 

Read the OPs post one more time. "--my company requires that I take a payroll advance against my paycheck to pay the fee--". This is not the company saying pay the bill and we will give you the money back. This is the carrier sending the driver a comcheck/EFS code.

 

While I am on the subject I can remember many times over the last several years I drove that I was not able to get dispatch on the phone or get a timely QC message back when it came time to pay for a washout. It was always frustrating, thankfully I kept some reserve cash and paid the washout. My carrier always refunded the money and it was always listed in a non-taxable addition to the Net Pay.

 

Let me point out that this is the same thing that happens with lumper fees.

If there is a lumper to pay I send a macro for the money.
Swift puts that money into my Comdata account and I write a Comcheck to the lumper.
That is a company advance (vs. a personal advance).

Then I scan in the lumper receipt with the bol when I finish the load.
If I fail to scan in the receipt, well, it comes out of my pay.

But it never comes out of my pocket first. The company puts the money into my account to pay it upfront.
Since it is both deducted and reimbursed on the same paycheck as that load, I am never out of pocket for the money.

 

Back in the days before Comdata drivers in almost every case were given expense cash. When they returned from a trip they submitted their paperwork and receipts and got the money spent replaced. In a lot of places, drivers bought fuel in places where their carriers had accounts set up. It was a different world!

 

If a company doesn’t trust you with a few hundred dollars then you shouldn’t trust it holding your salary until the weeks end.

I understand that’s how companies work, but I’m not going to be part of that equation.

 

In this day and age of instant digital money transfers.....the described transaction is......well....Stupid! As has been mentioned...Not my truck, freight, problem. If i can use ZELLE to send cash to anybody with an account and a phone number, these companies can too. They need to get out of the payphone mentality. Also.... Why are they so willing to pay these recurring "late fees". The Comdata/ EFS "Cash Advance scheme may be a way for both parties to be skimming. Oh. .....no.....wait. That could never happen in the noble profession of trucking!!!!!! Owners, Brokers, Customers being dishonest????

 

I have a Comdata card for fuel, and blank Comdata checks for expenses. I call in things like lumper fees or repairs or whatever, and they give me an express code for the exact amount. I scan in the receipt and send it back, as well as turn it in with my paperwork at the end of the week.

Nothing goes near payroll!

 

That is the way it should be. Something fishy about the way the OP's company is shuffling that money around. I have never had a dime of my pay go anywhere my Comdata/EFS card. I have NEVER taken a cash advance at the pumps. My money is MY MONEY! Goes straight into my bank account via direct deposit every Friday.

 

With years of doing this same thing, I can't ever remember anything different. I did have a few situations where payroll would send me a message to call them about a receipt that was hard to read or was missing. But, I never remember my pay being messed with. I got codes to pay for everything from load locks to windshield wipers to lights. Lumper feels, washouts, CAT scale tickets (these I paid for and got my money back).

You could read the OPs comment and take it like the carrier is scamming them. To be honest I don't ever remember being assessed a late or rescheduling fee as most of the time this was done by my carrier anyway. A carrier only has two ways to pay for things with drivers out on the road. They either give the driver cash, or they use things like Comdata. I'm telling you right now when a carrier sends a driver money the driver is 100% responsible for said money until the receipts are turned in. Just based on my experiences I suspect the OP is very green and is not understanding how this system works. If a carrier is playing a scam like this they are violating the law. This could also be construed as wire fraud, those are federal beefs! I would like it if the OP would let us know who this carrier is, because if they are scamming drivers they need to be held accountable!