We are looking to update our cell phone reimbursement policy. What's the average dollar amount that companies are reimbursing?
Cell Phone Stipends
Answers
Anon,
We do it at two levels, based on the fact that pretty much every plan is now generally flat rate, and the "average" decent plan is $100-ish.
-"Require" that they have a plan, and reimburse up to $100 (submit the bill).
-For sales folks who are "required" to have beefier plans, keep it open ended (as the bills can get huge and crazy, but I pay to have the sales folks on the phone, and let their managers manage abusers).
Cheers,
Anon back
(also check the hyperlink in your question; there is a good discussion there about the technical aspects)
I am not a fan of stipends. You can do this, but you will probably need a study to prove out your stipend to taxing authorities. I would suggest paying actual costs.
We do a flat $90 a month in the paycheck. It is taxable to the employee, but it saves us a ton of hassle on expense reimbursement.
Depends on the type of employee. If the employee is required to be on call, then 100%. If the employee periodically for their own convenience logs in to perform system maintenance but such remote tasks are not actually required, then some nominal amount say $25.00. Phones fall into that rule about personal use, just like computers and vehicles. Not a fan but for some jobs it is unfair not to reimburse.
We just implemented a plan and reimburse $60/month for sales people and $40 for others that we expected to be connected off-hours or that work remotely. Our executives receive company provided phones.
Our program gives $60 per month reimbursement to all employees.
We strongly suggest to customers that they consider how different groups of employees use their cell phones for work. For example, Executives, Sales, Support, etc. And come up with policies for each group that make sense - this should possibly also vary by geo depending on how distributed you are nationally or internationally. Then an expense reporting solution should fully automate tracking to those policies so employees can easily see when they are in violation (it's typically the way they actually learn the rules) and managers/Finance can easily review.
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