Concur, a company that provides on-demand employee spend management services, has reported that around 10 percent of British employees have cheated on their business related travel expenses.
A study of around 1,200 workers, conducted by UK based research company, You Gov, found that around 11 percent had inflated their expense claims in the last year. The study also says that around 28 percent of those working in large private sector organisations are likely to consider it acceptable to exaggerate expenses, compared to 13 percent with a similar ethos in the public sector.
The company’s UK managing director, David Vine, said, ‘In recent years, the public sector has faced significant publicised scrutiny over the accuracy of expense claims, resulting in a mandate for increased transparency.
As such, we’ve witnessed a reduction in those in the public sector who think exaggerating expenses is acceptable (14 per cent in 2011 compared to 13 per cent in 2012). In a tough economy with little spare cash, it’s imperative that attitudes within the private sector towards expenses quickly follows suit.
Our data suggests that over one in ten employees are exaggerating their expenses and the reliance on manual-based expense management processes exacerbates the problem, as it exposes businesses to unnecessary revenue leakage due to the lack of checks and balances in the system
Expense automation can reduce expense processing costs by up to 50 to 60 percent and can increase travel policy compliance by up to 30 to 50 percent.’
The most common excuses for business travellers cheating on travel expenses are, ‘to make up for the times when I forgot’, followed by, ‘money is tight’.
