Greene King pub gig payment

[Silvia Bluejay]

25 minutes ago, TimR said:

The pubs are suppliers to customers.

I'm not sure about that, if by customers you mean the punters. The punters pay the bill presented by the pub, which replaces the exchange of invoices in cases like hospitality, retail etc. It's still proof of payment, of course.

[TimR]

26 minutes ago, Silvia Bluejay said:

I'm not sure about that, if by customers you mean the punters. The punters pay the bill presented by the pub, which replaces the exchange of invoices in cases like hospitality, retail etc. It's still proof of payment, of course.

Yes. But it's instant. If I buy a beer, the pub doesn't send an invoice to my home address and ask to be paid within 28 days. 

[TimR]

35 minutes ago, Silvia Bluejay said:

Distributing the money among the band members and getting receipts - or being able to get receipts if needed - should be OK to avoid band leaders looking like they're getting rich (HAHA....!). It's up to each musician to declare their income from music if it's deemed to be high enough to be taxable.

 

Yes. But it's turnover that they look at. 

 

If I do 20 gigs at £50 I don't have to tell the taxman.

 

If I do 20 gigs at £250, my turnover is now £5000 and I'm supposed to then go self assessment. The fact I'm instantly giving out £4000 is irrelevant. They want to see where that £4000 has gone. 

 

To stay within the tax laws. Ultimately there's no profit and no tax to pay, but that's not the point. I doubt many hobby players are going self assessed anyway. 

Edited January 21, 2022 by TimR

[robscott]

On 23/10/2021 at 15:01, Mudpup said:

We just got paid for a gig we aren't playing till next Friday in a GK pub. Never had that before (although we haven't dished it out yet in case anyone comes down with Covid beforehand and it gets scratched)  😂 

 

Didn't know Gallien Krueger ran pubs 🤔

[Richard R]

SAP Concur is designed as an expense management system for internal company use, it's not a supplier order/invoice system. I think GK are misusing it by making the bands log in and create accounts. 

What would make sense, if the idea is to pay bands centrally and track cost, is that the PUB puts in an expenses claim to cover your bill. 

 

[Silvia Bluejay]

6 hours ago, Richard R said:

SAP Concur is designed as an expense management system for internal company use, it's not a supplier order/invoice system. I think GK are misusing it by making the bands log in and create accounts. 

What would make sense, if the idea is to pay bands centrally and track cost, is that the PUB puts in an expenses claim to cover your bill. 

 

Some pubs do - they ask you for an invoice, pay you on the night, then claim from their breweries or owners.

However, that's open to the old trick of "we agreed to pay you £250, but we want you to write £300 on your invoice." so the LL gets £50 for himself every time he has a band. It looks petty, and it is, but it has happened to us a few times. In those cases it all happened after the gig, so we were there at 1am wanting to go home and unwilling to start a row. We made a point of never playing in those places again.

[Nicko]

17 hours ago, TimR said:

 

Yes. But it's turnover that they look at. 

 

If I do 20 gigs at £50 I don't have to tell the taxman.

 

If I do 20 gigs at £250, my turnover is now £5000 and I'm supposed to then go self assessment. The fact I'm instantly giving out £4000 is irrelevant. They want to see where that £4000 has gone. 

 

To stay within the tax laws. Ultimately there's no profit and no tax to pay, but that's not the point. I doubt many hobby players are going self assessed anyway. 

What is the problem with that?   HMRC require you to declare earnings from your hobby but any expenses are deductable.  If a BL turns over £4000 and hands out £3000 to other members he should declare it but there is no tax liability as his earnings do not exceed the limit.  If he gets cash the same rules apply.  I'm assuming any pub paying will be claiming the fee as a deductable expense and they would have to account for it by stating who they paid.

 

I have been asked for an NI number by a pub before so they were clearly using that to identify the supplier - if not cheating a bit and claiming the band were an employee on that night.

 

HMRC are actually quite reasonable.  If you start doing self assessment and declaring minimal income from playing gigs they'll probably tell you that you no longer need to bother.

 

I suspect many people who do not do self assessment probably should.

[Nick-V]

Hopefully the following information will help others get paid by Greene King more promptly and avoid unnecessary frustration.

Before the event, I was advised we would be paid within a couple of days. Three weeks after the event, I am still awaiting payment and have had to fight my way thru numerous steps using the Concur system. Today I obtained useful information directly from a manager at their Head Office (not Concur).

 

All such payments go thru the Concur system, no cash, no exceptions. That said, it should be possible to get paid in about 1 week. The steps appear to be as follows:

1) Set up a supplier account in advance including your bank info (some simple verification is required).
2) Create a "Request" in advance describing what you intend to supply (a "Request is like a "Purchase Order").

3) The "Request" should then be approved promptly by both the pub landlord (or suchlike) and then their manager. I was delayed unnecessarily by both parties and recommend strongly you insist the order is approved in advance of the event. This is an agreement between both parties to pay a sum for a service. Any suggestion that you may not turn up is nonsense as they can refuse to approve any payment later on.

4) Immediately after the gig, create an "Expense" (an Invoice) from the "Request". You need to upload an invoice which must contain the amount, same supply details, full address of both parties, invoice number, same date as the "Request" and perhaps other details.

5) Within 3 days the "Expense" should be approved by a Concur auditor.
6) The approved "Expense" should then be approved for payment by the pub landlord (or suchlike).
7) The payment should then be received shortly (after some 3 days).
 
Lessons learned:
1) My expectations were set incorrectly. There was no way I'd be paid in a couple of days.
2) Your account and the "Request" should be set up and approved by two parties in advance - not afterwards as advised.
3) Upload a proper invoice promptly after the event to create an "Expense".

4) The system is new to Greene King and some staff are not progressing approvals in a timely manner.
 

Don't hesitate to call Concur support or Greene King directly to chase progress. All parties, including you, have a vested interest in making the system work without unnecessary frustration and maintaining good relations.

[Bassfinger]

Weve been asked to play a GK pub on Jubilee weekend. We've declined. 

[Richard R]

5 hours ago, Nick-V said:

Hopefully the following information will help others get paid by Greene King more promptly and avoid unnecessary frustration.

Before the event, I was advised we would be paid within a couple of days. Three weeks after the event, I am still awaiting payment and have had to fight my way thru numerous steps using the Concur system. Today I obtained useful information directly from a manager at their Head Office (not Concur).

 

All such payments go thru the Concur system, no cash, no exceptions. That said, it should be possible to get paid in about 1 week. The steps appear to be as follows:

1) Set up a supplier account in advance including your bank info (some simple verification is required).
2) Create a "Request" in advance describing what you intend to supply (a "Request is like a "Purchase Order").

3) The "Request" should then be approved promptly by both the pub landlord (or suchlike) and then their manager. I was delayed unnecessarily by both parties and recommend strongly you insist the order is approved in advance of the event. This is an agreement between both parties to pay a sum for a service. Any suggestion that you may not turn up is nonsense as they can refuse to approve any payment later on.

4) Immediately after the gig, create an "Expense" (an Invoice) from the "Request". You need to upload an invoice which must contain the amount, same supply details, full address of both parties, invoice number, same date as the "Request" and perhaps other details.

5) Within 3 days the "Expense" should be approved by a Concur auditor.
6) The approved "Expense" should then be approved for payment by the pub landlord (or suchlike).
7) The payment should then be received shortly (after some 3 days).
 
Lessons learned:
1) My expectations were set incorrectly. There was no way I'd be paid in a couple of days.
2) Your account and the "Request" should be set up and approved by two parties in advance - not afterwards as advised.
3) Upload a proper invoice promptly after the event to create an "Expense".

4) The system is new to Greene King and some staff are not progressing approvals in a timely manner.
 

Don't hesitate to call Concur support or Greene King directly to chase progress. All parties, including you, have a vested interest in making the system work without unnecessary frustration and maintaining good relations.

 

This shows exactly why repurposing an internal expenses system to pay suppliers is a bad idea. If you imagine it as an employee request to go to a conference followed by claiming the expenses associated with the trip, then the process and the naming convention makes sense. It's still not nice software, but that's what it's designed for.  

 

Hopefully if you have regular gigs with the same pub it will become straightforward. 

 

 

[Nick-V]

The alternative to using the Concur expenses system with Greene King is to become a proper supplier and accept monthly payment terms instead which is worse. The system is fine but we all need to understand and use it better, that's all. Refusing performance opportunities due to an unwillingness to embrace the process seems unnecessary and a shame although I recognise some of us are less tenacious.  

Edited February 18, 2022 by Nick-V

[Richard R]

2 hours ago, Nick-V said:

The alternative to using the Concur expenses system with Green King is to become a proper supplier and accept monthly payment terms instead which is worse. The system is fine but we all need to understand and use it better, that's all. Refusing performance opportunities due to an unwillingness to embrace the process seems unnecessary and a shame although I recognise some of us are less tenacious.  

Or the landlord books and pays you, and puts the payment through the expenses system.

But it is what it is, and once you're set up it should all be workable. Maybe they had to introduce it because too many landlords were fiddling the books? Who knows?

[FinnDave]

11 minutes ago, Richard R said:

Maybe they had to introduce it because too many landlords were fiddling the books? Who knows?

That was the explanation I was given when they introduced Invapay. I have avoided booking my band into GK pubs since that started, and the latest version seems even less friendly.

[Chris2112]

It could be worse I suppose, they could try to pay you with their beer 🤣

[Bass diva]

Action: You have entered an amount that is greater than the approved request please change the amount to less than or equal to the request amount .      Can anyone help me with this red flag

 

 

 

 

[Silvia Bluejay]

I haven't had that yet. Check for any misplaced decimal points/commas, rogue extra zeros, spurious spaces between numbers and similar. If all else fails, get in touch with them, they were helpful when I did that for a different problem.

[geoham]

We've just about resolved as a band to cease playing gigs for the last remaining Greene King pub on our circuit. We're all hobbyists, so we've accepted being incredibly poorly paid for years - but the hassle of getting paid at all is now just not worth it. 

 

Our recent claim took 11 days for their audit folk to review, who rejected it due to a very minor error on the item description on the invoice. Resubmitted 5 days ago and no further forward... presumably to the back of the queue. 

[zbd1960]

Ugh SAP/Concur - as a now retired employee of a large company that was how we claimed our expenses. It was horrendous. One of the clunkiest and user hostile systems I've encountered. We decided it was a conspiracy to deter us from submitting expense claims...

[geoham]

18 hours ago, zbd1960 said:

Ugh SAP/Concur - as a now retired employee of a large company that was how we claimed our expenses. It was horrendous. One of the clunkiest and user hostile systems I've encountered. We decided it was a conspiracy to deter us from submitting expense claims...

I've been using it for various jobs for about 15 years. Never gets better... 
Definitely not a good system for bands to invoice pubs!

[Silvia Bluejay]

My impression is that pubs are also very confused about how it works. Also, I think the requesting/invoicing process itself changed between the first time I used the system last year and the second time I had to use it this year. We have at least one more gig paid via Concur, so I'll keep this thread up to date if relevant.

[geoham]

15 minutes ago, Silvia Bluejay said:

My impression is that pubs are also very confused about how it works. Also, I think the requesting/invoicing process itself changed between the first time I used the system last year and the second time I had to use it this year. We have at least one more gig paid via Concur, so I'll keep this thread up to date if relevant.

The process seemed the same to me - for a gig just before Christmas then one a few weeks ago. From what I can fathom out, this is the process:-

Submit request

Pub manager approves

Area manager approves

Submit claim, attach invoice

Audit team approves (This step took MUCH longer this time)
Pub manager approves

Sent for payment

 

For about enough to cover beer and petrol!

[Buddster]

19 hours ago, zbd1960 said:

Ugh SAP/Concur - as a now retired employee of a large company that was how we claimed our expenses. It was horrendous. One of the clunkiest and user hostile systems I've encountered. We decided it was a conspiracy to deter us from submitting expense claims...

Same here. Our company bought it in and even the accounting dept hated it. 

We were an book /audio publisher and they tried to shoehorn it in and it was absolutely b@ll@cks

[Silvia Bluejay]

1 hour ago, geoham said:

The process seemed the same to me - for a gig just before Christmas then one a few weeks ago. From what I can fathom out, this is the process:-

Submit request

Pub manager approves

Area manager approves

Submit claim, attach invoice

Audit team approves (This step took MUCH longer this time)
Pub manager approves

Sent for payment

 

For about enough to cover beer and petrol!

The very first time I did that was in early Sept 21, a few days after the official introduction of Concur to Greene King. I seem to remember that one of the steps requested less info, or info to be entered within that step in a slightly different sequence from what happens now. The pub we were dealing with had initially no idea what to do! But we all worked together and got to the end of the process reasonably quickly.

[Guest gazzatriumph]

I played a gig a couple of weeks ago and the landlord gave us some coloured rectangular pieces of paper with pictures on them.

[Silvia Bluejay]

5 minutes ago, gazzatriumph said:

I played a gig a couple of weeks ago and the landlord gave us some coloured rectangular pieces of paper with pictures on them.

OMG!! Did anyone remember how to use them, and what they're for? Did you sanitise them thoroughly before touching them? 😱😱😱