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Business travel expense fiddling “commonplace”
Many business travellers believe that expense fiddling is commonplace, a survey shows.
More than a third of European and US corporate travellers questioned by American Express said it was “somewhat” or “quite” common for expenses to be submitted with “one or more completely false or bogus charges”.
The poll of 500 business travellers shows that companies are getting wise to expense abuse and are cracking down.
Almost half of respondents said their companies’ policies on reimbursable travel expenses have become either “somewhat” or “a lot” tougher in the past two to three years.
As a result, a minority 23% said they were either “somewhat” or “much” more careful in adhering to their firms’ travel and expenses spending rules.
Many business travellers are seeing their bosses scrutinise their expanses claims more carefully. More than a third (37%) said their companies are more careful in reviewing expenses to check for “non-allowable” items.
European companies are following the lead of their US counterparts in adopting tougher travel and expenses rules.
The French adhere most to tighter policies at 33%, followed by 26% of those polled in the UK, 16% in the US and 15% of German business travellers, according to the 2005 Amex survey of international traveller expense practices.
Nearly half of French respondents said their firms are confronting them more on specific charges submitted on expense reports, followed by 15% or British and 12% of German travellers on business.
Amex Corporate Services senior vice president James Crotty said: “Increasingly, corporations are stepping up efforts to track and halt out-of-policy spending and tighten their grip on T&E.
“Many of our corporate clients are mandating the use of the corporate card as a way to track travel expenses because companies want a more complete picture of employee spending – enabling them to analyse expense patterns, monitor travel policy compliance and negotiate better rates with suppliers.”
Report by Phil Davies
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