usage of「ご迷惑をおかけ・・・」variants for a business apology?

Question

I have to apologize for a procedural error at work, and am unsure about selecting the right form of apology from the variants of 「ご迷惑をおかけ・・・」: 1.「ご迷惑【めいわく】をおかけして申【もう】し訳【わけ】ございません。」 2.「ご迷惑【めいわく】をおかけして申【もう】し訳【わけ】ありません。」 3.「ご迷惑【めいわく】をおかけしてすみません。」 Also, whether or not to append 「でした」to the end. The thing I am apologizing for is a mistake in a business purchase. I charged a purchase to my corporate card, but should have had the vendor bill monthly using the 分割払【ぶんかつばら】い option. So a brief explanation, concluding with this apology, will be written in the comment section of my expense report. The reason for apologizing is not to really say I am sorry, but just to let everybody in the approval chain for my expense report know that I now know I did it wrong, and won't do it like this in the future. I chose to write it as follows: 「ご迷惑【めいわく】をおかけしてすみませんでした。」 Reasons: Firstly, this is an **internal company communication**, and the people to whom I will submit this document are of a **lesser coporate rank than myself** (although they are not my subordinates, since the work for the Finance Department). So I felt like 「申し訳ございません」was too much. (Also, I confess, because I don't yet really understand the full nuance of super-polite self-humbling apology in Japanese, so I tend to never use verbs like 「ございます」or 「いたします」. ) Does that reasoning make sense? Secondly, as for the 「でした」 at the end, I put it in the past tense because the procedural error I made happened last month. The way I think of it, I'm saying, "Sorry for the error I made last month," so I put it in past tense. But I wasn't confident about this, because the actual bother I am causing them is actually happening at the time I submit my expense report. So in a different sense I am saying, "Sorry for the bother I am causing you right now by submitting this unexpectedly high expense report, due to the error I made last month". Thought about that way, I wondered if the apology should be in the present tense. Which is correct? Or might either one work? (And speaking of apologies: sorry for the two-part question; I couldn't cleanly separate these two concerns.)

Answer 1

I understand your concerns. I agree with you about not using “申し訳ございません” is too much for internal company communications, especially communication is to lesser rank than yourself.

After carefully reading and understanding the situation you are in, I have come up with the short comment you might want to write on your expense report as below.

“ 今回はお手数おかけします。よろしくお願いします。”

translation : Sorry for the inconvenience I caused this time. Thank you for your corporation.