A question about incidental expenses

[alto929]

Hi guys,

Bio grad here. On stipend. 

Do your advisers ask you to occasionally pay for minor to moderate (often <$40, occasionally <$100) lab expenses out of pocket?

Is it ethical to do this?

I'm feeling more than a little sore about a situation like this and would like to know if I'm overreacting. The reimbursements are inevitably a giant pain in the tuchus, and in my experience the onus is on the grad student to do the footwork (and paperwork) to get recouped for doing a favor for the lab.

If I should cool my jets, that's cool, and I'd like to know.

If not, is there any way to address this, other than having a chat with the PI (which I will do soon)? I generally really really like PI, and I don't want to get PI in trouble, I just want PI to use their own damn money and start respecting mine (not to mention respecting my time).

Thanks for any feedback.

[TakeruK]

I guess it is a little hard to give specific advice without knowing the details? 

In general, yes, you should submit reimbursement forms for lab/research related expenses. However, this shouldn't be a surprise to the PI--i.e. it's something you two should have talked about, unless there is already a blanket clearance for these types of expenses.

To give a concrete example, I do not spend my own money on research related expenses. Even when I need to purchase a $10 battery recharger for my wireless mouse, I asked my professor if I could do this and then it was charged to our research grant. The only time I spend my own money is when it's my own things I would like to purchase for convenience and I would keep for myself later. For example, the USB ports on my computer are tough to reach, so I purchased one of those USB hubs things. I didn't bother getting this reimbursed because I wanted to own one of these eventually anyways, and I plan on taking it with me when I graduate.

As for the reimbursement forms, it's too bad but yes, it is normal for graduate students to spend the time doing this and I would say it is part of our job. It is unreasonable for a PI to expect their grad students to pay for lab expenses but it is expected that grad students spend the time filling out reimbursement forms in order to charge these expenses to the right account. 

If these forms are taking a lot of time, can you have a talk with your PI on perhaps consolidating the ordering into one order per month or something so you can do it all at the same time? Also, if you are not able to put the charges on your own card and get reimbursed, then that conversation might need to happen too. I don't think there is a general $$$ amount that is considered "unreasonable" for a grad student to pay for upfront. The number depends on each grad student's personal situation and sometimes a $50 charge is okay and sometimes a $10 isn't okay! Students should have a conversation with their PI if their PI is causing undue financial burden by having the student pay upfront.

Finally, there may be an easier solution. When I need to order something, sometimes my PI gives me their P-Card or sometimes I just ask the admin assistant for our group to use their P-Card to make the order. I just get everything all set up on the website that I'm buying from, then I ask the admin assistant to come over with the P-Card and fill in the payment detail. Everyone likes this method better because I don't have to pay upfront costs and it's less paperwork since it charges to the grant, instead of a reimbursement. I also know that at my school, grad students can be issued P-Cards in very special circumstances. One student I know orders a ton of things for her lab all the time so she got a special P-Card so that she can just charge the stuff to her lab. 

[Eigen]

To clarify, when you say out of your pocket, you mean you're getting reimbursed, right? 

If so, this is common. Common in labs, and common in workplaces outside of labs  

If you aren't getting reimbursed, that's a whole different issue.

As to purchasing cards, that's highly dependent on the university. 

Edited August 31, 2015 by Eigen

[farflung]

I interpreted "out of pocket" as things you purchased which were NOT reimbursed. If this is indeed the case, you have every reason to believe this is unusual and unfair! In my experience [[in a department which usually struggles with organization/timeliness/bureaucratic functioning]] graduate students are reimbursed for even the most minor expenses (paper plates for a lunch presentation, etc) by the financial administrator of our department. She also completes the reimbursement paperwork on our behalf -- we simply bring her receipts and make sure she knows who / what grant to charge it to. Is there an administrative assistant or someone who is not your PI you could consult with about this? Many departments also keep petty cash on hand for small expenses, so you could try casually asking if such a system exists. There is no reason you should be footing the bill for lab expenses. 

[TakeruK]

Just to clarify, purchasing cards/P-cards are certainly a policy that varies from university to university (or even between departments within a university). I don't mean that this is going to be a solution that will work for you, but it's something worth inquiring about. For example, it is not at all clear that graduate students can even be issued P-Cards unless you end up reading all of the HR memos to find the one that says they can do this (or you know a graduate student with a P-card). 

Also, at this school, our admin staff handles all of the paperwork for us, but at my previous schools, the paperwork was our responsibility! I think my current school also has a policy of not requiring receipts for expenses less than $75, however, this is complicated because this depends a lot on the source of the money (e.g. if it's being paid by an endowment of a donor, receipts are generally required to be accountable to the donor).

[Eigen]

IRS reg's have also gotten a lot tighter over the last few years. Our school got audited a few years ago, and everything got waaay stricter in terms of receipts.

[TakeruK]

IRS reg's have also gotten a lot tighter over the last few years. Our school got audited a few years ago, and everything got waaay stricter in terms of receipts.

It seems like these rules are always changing, too! Currently, I don't have to submit any receipts for meals/incidentals expenses while traveling as long as it's below the per diem rate; however, when I get cookies from the grocery store for seminar snacks, I still need to submit a $5 receipt. That gets paid out of petty cash though, so the turnaround is very fast--I usually get the reimbursement in a few hours or the next morning. But then for the same seminar series, one speaker was not able to get a receipt until after they returned home and asked if they needed to mail it in, and the answer was no, since it was under $75.

So, I don't even want to pretend that I know exactly how it works--I'm sure it really does all make sense from the administrative point of view. But I do want to point out that there is no "one policy fits all" and for any student with reimbursement issues, they should certainly talk to the admin staff because the admin staff will know what to do and how to best help you!

[Eigen]

Absolutely. I know our institution won't even let faculty buy most labs supplies via p-cards- they have to go through central purchasing.

For minor stuff, we aren't allowed to keep any sort of petty cash (new trash cans for the lab, soap, tools, etc.) so we buy and are either reimbursed through the department, or if it's really urgent that we need the cash (reimbursement takes about 2 weeks), we can swap receipts for cash with our PI, and have them submit the reimbursement. 

I would think that if your budget is so tight you can't wait a couple of weeks for minor reimbursements, there are bigger problems than just having to buy things for the lab. 

As for what we consider "minor" or "moderate" expenses... 

Minor I'd consider <$50, Moderate $50-$150, and "major" over $150. I've had to do some of the latter category occasionally, mostly covering events for the department/graduate student association pending reimbursement. 

Edited August 31, 2015 by Eigen