Documentation of a business trip occurs as follows: the official assignment for the business trip is filled out (as a rule, this is done by the head of the department), and an appropriate order is drawn up based on this assignment. When returning from a business trip, the employee reports on the work done and travel expenses incurred, submitting the completed advance report form AO-1 and travel certificate form T-10.
Changes in 2015: The Government of the Russian Federation, by its Resolution dated December 29, 2014, abolished the mandatory issuance of a travel certificate and official assignment. Details in this article.
You can see how to draw up a business trip order here, a completed advance report here, and a travel certificate in this article.
It remains to talk about the official assignment for the business trip. This document has a unified form T-10a. This form can be found at the end of the article.
What documents does a business traveler need?
An employee sent on a business trip is subject to serious requirements for paperwork - the papers confirm the company's expenses, controlled by the fiscal authorities.
The current version of Government Decree No. 749 dated 10/13/08 speaks of the need:
- written order from the administration to go on a business trip;
- advance report on business expenses.
All entries in the advance report are confirmed by primary documents (travel, living expenses, etc.). The written order is issued in the form of a business trip order, which briefly describes, among other things, its purpose.
Despite the reduction in documentation for business trips at the legislative level, many personnel officers continue to issue both a travel certificate and an official assignment for a business trip, believing that the mandatory documents specified in the legislation are not enough to fully account for the business trip.
Both the order and the job assignment reflect the goals set by management for the employee. The job assignment has a number of features.
On the basis of what document is an employee sent on a business trip?
In 2015, the rules changed, based on which it was necessary to arrange business trips. From this moment on, the official assignment and travel certificate are recognized as optional for use. The order took the leading role in documenting the trip.
To draw up an order, you can use a standard form in T-9 format, or use the company’s letterhead.
In the latter case, this document must necessarily contain information - for what purpose the employee is going, for how long, and to what place:
- The purpose of the note is indicated in the travel memo, official assignment or other document that serves as the basis for the business trip;
- The number of days of travel includes all the time that the employee is absent from his place, including days on the road;
- The destination is usually considered to be the name of the country, city and host company. In the case when an employee goes on a long trip visiting several settlements, it is imperative to list them all. In addition, an employee can be sent not to a specific company, but to search for new partners - then there is no need to write down the name of the receiving company, but only the city.
Attention: even taking into account the current changes in legislation, the company can still continue to use the job assignment and identification. The main thing is that this is stated in the Business Travel Regulations, accounting policies or other internal regulatory document.
Is a job assignment required?
Resolution No. 749 does not mention this type of document, and therefore it is considered that the organization has no obligation to draw it up. If the business trip is urgent, it is easier to get by with a written order for the organization; this will not be considered a violation. However, if a serious long trip is ahead, the employee should still present the task in the clearest, most detailed form, in a separate document. Usually, a memo or, more familiar to the employee and management, an official assignment is drawn up.
It not only indicates the purpose of the trip, as in the order, but also provides a more detailed list of tasks that the seconded employee must perform to achieve it. This detailed form of presenting the task is convenient: it makes it possible to avoid misunderstandings and inaccuracies when carrying out an official assignment to an employee and to easily monitor the execution of the administration.
A travel assignment is considered an internal document; its application must be reflected in local acts relating to business trips (Article 8 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation).
On a note! Order No. 558 of the Ministry of Culture dated 08/25/10 on the list of management documentation and storage periods for documents under No. 669 specifies documents on the secondment of employees, including official assignments.
Their shelf life is 5 years, and 10 years for business trips abroad.
What are the consequences for an employee of failure to fulfill an official task?
According to current legislation, the employee and the employer are obliged to comply with the internal acts of the enterprise. Thus, if the Regulations on Business Travel adopted by a particular company also include a job assignment, then the employees’ responsibilities will include first filling out the form accordingly, and then completing the assigned task.
An employee who refuses to fill out this document may be subject to disciplinary action for inappropriate performance of job duties (see Article 192 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation). In the same way, an employee who refuses to fulfill the purposes for which he was sent on a business trip may be subject to disciplinary action. And if a person repeatedly violates discipline without good reason and a penalty has already been applied to him, he can even be fired.
Who issues the official assignment and who must sign it?
The execution of a job assignment for a seconded employee can be entrusted to his immediate superior, for example, the chief engineer, if an ordinary engineer is sent on a secondment. Quite often, the registration is carried out by an employee of the personnel service on the basis of a memorandum from the head of the department, approved by the head of the company.
The written assignment for a business trip is signed by:
- head of the company;
- head of a structural unit;
- the worker himself.
The number of copies of the document is specified in the LNA. Most often they are limited to one copy. The task is issued to each employee separately, even if they are sent on a business trip as a group, according to the order.
The head of the company, going on a business trip, draws up an official assignment for himself as an employee and signs it himself.
The document provides not only the task as such, but also a report upon return from a business trip on its execution. It must be provided to management regardless of whether the approved T-10a form is used or a free one adopted by the company and enshrined in a local act.
After the end of the trip, the task is submitted along with the advance report and documents confirming the expenses. If the organization's document flow provides for a travel certificate, it is also attached to the package.
On a note! If the use of an official task is prescribed in the LNA, the employee is obliged to report in writing on the execution, otherwise he will be punished under the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, Art. 192.
Sample assignment for a business trip
Two points are worth noting:
- Business trips are divided into two types: planned and unscheduled. The sample travel assignment in question is prepared by the immediate supervisor of the employee who is sent on a business trip based on the plan.
- At the moment, the Regulations approved by Government Decree No. 749 dated October 13, 2008 (as amended on December 29, 2014) do not contain requirements for the mandatory execution of this document. However, a reason is required to issue an order. This basis becomes an official memorandum or a unified form T-10a, an official assignment, a sample of which is presented below.
Composition of the document
A service assignment for a posted employee, drawn up in any legal way (on a unified form or without it) contains certain details:
- Document header. Consists of the name of the document, number, date, name of the company that sent the employee on a business trip.
- Information about the posted employee. Full name, position, personnel number, department to which it belongs.
- Business trip information. This will include the name of the receiving party, the location of the business trip, its expected start and end dates. Indicate the number of days of the business trip, including those without being on the road. Form T-10a provides the name of the organization that pays for the business trip. Usually this is the same company where the business traveler works. If the document is drawn up in free form, according to the rules of internal LNA, this paragraph may be omitted, meaning by default.
- Base. The details of the base document are indicated here. Most often this is a business trip order, but there may also be another document, for example, a remote work plan if a technical specialist is sent on a business trip.
- Exercise. Enter the purpose of the trip, point by point.
- Report on the completion of the task. This item is filled out after the employee returns either by himself or by his immediate supervisor, who is able to objectively assess whether the subordinate has completed the assigned task.
- Signatures. The head of the company, the department and the employee himself sign. A separate paragraph includes a resolution on the completion of the task and the signature of the head of the unit under it (for the second time, upon the employee’s return).
In many cases, the T-10a form is not used because it has limited fields to fill out. If the content of a job assignment is voluminous, it is inconvenient to fill out such a document. Then a free form is used with the inclusion of the above data.
Design features
There should be no mistakes in filling out.
A travel assignment is issued in accordance with the established form No. T-10a, which was approved back in 2004 by a resolution of the State Duma. But along with this form, the employer can also approve the form of the organization if any other information is required, and so on.
The job assignment is filled out by the head of the organization. In addition, he also approves. The blue seal of the organization and the signature of the boss are required in the document - without them it is not valid.
Each column of the document is filled in one by one - accurately and accurately. If there are blots in the document, you should take a new form and fill it out. Corrections and erasures are not allowed in the document.
You can fill out the document either on a computer or manually. With the latter method, you should use only two types of ink - black or blue.
In addition, it is best to fill out a document with a regular ballpoint pen; gel pens require special care when used.
Many employees wonder: is it necessary to draw up a work assignment, for example, when going on a short business trip? After all, the employee already knows why he is going. Let's consider this issue in more detail.
Sample
Let's take a conventional example, in which Deputy Director Vasily Petrovich Ivanov goes on a business trip to carry out a number of assignments. After returning, he himself fills out a report on the completion of the task. The official assignment was completed by a personnel service employee on the written order of the director. The director is the employee's immediate supervisor. The unified form, according to the LNA, is not used by the company.
Agat LLC
Official assignment for sending on a business trip and a report on its implementation
No. 77-k
dated 10.10.19 Ivanov Vasily Petrovich tab. No. 5
Division - AUP, position - deputy director.
Sent to Stimul LLC, Ryazan, on a business trip for the period October 10-17, 2021, for a period of 8 calendar days, of which 2 days were on the road. Reason: order No. 65-k dated October 9, 2019 on sending V.P. Ivanov on a business trip.
Contents of the job assignment:
1. Conclusion of a contract for the supply of grapes. 2. Reconciliation of mutual settlements for the 1st-3rd quarter of 2021.
Director of Agat LLC Matrosov N.N.
Familiarized with the task: Deputy. Director Ivanov V.P.
Implementation report (filled out by the employee): 1. A contract for the supply of grapes dated October 12, 2019 was concluded. 2. Quarterly and general reconciliation of mutual settlements with Stimul LLC for the 1st-3rd quarter of 2019 was carried out.
10/18/19 Deputy Director Ivanov V.P.
Conclusion on the completion of the task: completed in full (filled out by the director).
Director Matrosov N.N.
Related documents
- Registration card of a scientific, scientific and pedagogical worker. Form N T-4
- A note indicating the provision of leave to an employee. Form N T-60
- Personal account (svt). Form N T-54a
- Personal account. Form N T-54
- Payslip. Form N T-51
- Payroll. Form N T-49
- Timesheets for recording working hours and calculating wages. Form N T-12
- Time sheet. Form N T-13
- Staffing schedule. Form N T-3
- Certificate of commissioning of a temporary (non-title) structure (Unified Form N KS-8)
- Certificate of acceptance of the completed construction of the facility by the acceptance committee (Standard interindustry form N KS-14)
- General work log (Standard intersectoral form N KS-6)
- Act on cleaning the pile (trench, vegetable storage) (Unified form N MX-17)
- Act on the consumption of goods by batch (Unified form N MX-11)
- Act on the consumption of goods by batch (Unified form N MX-12)
- Act on the depreciation of inventory items (Unified form N MX-15)
- Weight sheet (Unified form N MX-9)
- Logbook for incoming cargo (Unified form N MX-4)
- Invoice for the transfer of finished products to storage locations (Unified Form N MX-18)
- Forwarder's report (Unified form N MX-21)
How to count days correctly
A preliminary calculation of the employee's absence days is made before dispatch and is included in the text of the assignment. The actual duration of the business trip is determined primarily by travel documents. The starting point is the date of departure of transport from the place where a member of the work team works permanently.
In case of loss of travel documents:
- use documents confirming the rental of housing by an employee on a trip (hotel receipt, any other documents indicating temporary residence);
- The employee does not have documents for accommodation and travel - he draws up a memo (or any other document) in which he indicates the actual duration of his stay on a business trip, and the receiving party confirms it with the signatures of its responsible persons.
If the employee used company or personal transport instead of public transport, or involved third parties in the transportation, he draws up a memo with attached any documented data that the travel was carried out along the required route (waybill, gas station cash receipts, etc.).
When calculating business trip days reflected in the order, in the official assignment and in the report on its execution, it should be taken into account that:
- a day is counted up to 24 hours, including the last minutes, from zero hours – the next day;
- if the station, airport, marina are located outside the city limits, the travel time to them is included in the business trip period;
- The appearance of the business traveler at his permanent workplace on the day of departure and arrival is negotiated with the administration.
Briefly
- A business trip assignment is a document in which it is possible to specify in detail the purpose of a business trip, in contrast to a business trip order, where it is formulated briefly.
- In addition, the official assignment reflects the result of the execution of this order. The document is not mandatory, but is often used in business trip accounting practice. There is a unified form, but the company has the right to refuse it in favor of its own form or to draw up a document in free form based on the LNA. If a document is mentioned in the LNA, its completion is mandatory.
Alternative option
The disappearance of an official assignment from the text of the Business Travel Regulations does not mean at all that a paper with that name must be excluded from the internal document flow.
To arrange a business trip, you can still use the entire documentary chain described above. The only limitation: the status of the “travel” package of documents has changed - it can no longer serve as official confirmation of either the fact of a business trip or the expenses incurred in connection with it.
A simple technique will help you get out of this situation - you can modify the order to send an employee on a business trip (unified form T-9) by including the line “Purpose of the trip.”
The form of the main document sending an employee on a business trip can be found on our website: see the material “Unified Form No. T-9 - business trip order” .
But a condition must be met: the form of the order developed in-house must be enshrined in a local act, for example, an intra-company Regulation on Business Travel (Part 1, Article 8, Part 1, Article 22 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation).
To issue a travel certificate, an official assignment and a report on its implementation, you can use unified forms No. T-10 and No. T-10a (approved by Resolution of the State Statistics Committee of Russia dated January 5, 2004 No. 1) or forms independently developed by the employer.
T-10 can be found at the beginning of this article or in the material “Unified Form No. T-10 - Form and Sample.”
To decide whether you need to issue a work assignment for a business trip, we recommend that you study several opinions. See the authoritative opinion of K+ experts in the Guide to Personnel Issues by getting a free trial access.