FlyerTalk Forums - What "fraud" do you commit on expense reports to avoid questions?

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- - What "fraud" do you commit on expense reports to avoid questions? (https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travelbuzz/385975-what-fraud-do-you-commit-expense-reports-avoid-questions.html)

Quote:

Originally Posted by UAL_Rulez

Just a couple of points to add to everything above. I've been on both sides of this issue much of my career - i.e. as a manager setting policies and reviewing/ approving T&E expenses, and as a frequent business traveller submitting my own expenses.

1. To the OP - as several others have pointed out, the only good policy is NEVER to falsify ANYTHING - creating fake/doctored receipts, intentionally "burying" or misclassifying expenses, etc. Bottom line if this is found out - which it likely will be eventually - it's virtually certain you'll lose your job. Dishonesty and creating false corporate books and records should be, and are, a terminable offense in any company or country I'm aware of.

At my last firm, my response to out-of-policy expenses was just to haircut the reimbursement amount by whatever ineligible sums were claimed, and put a note on the expense report for the employee to see what wasn't kosher.

2. Totally agree that individuals who are not themselves frequent travellers should not be setting micro-managing policies for those that are. In any job that entails moderate to heavy travel, the travel and expense policies are a major determinant of quality-of-work-life; they should be reasonable under the company's circumstances, not designed to eke out minor budget improvements at the expense of major discomfort / inconvenience to those actually doing the road work. techgirl I can't believe the picayune-ness of some of your firm's policieis, especially if it's billable to clients!

3. Per diem meal reimbursements are the way to go IMHO. Who cares if the person orders a latte, pastry, Taco Bell, room service, six beers, or whatever with the money? (Obviously if the organization has values-based rules against paying for alcohol - e.g., say you work for the State Alcoholic Beverage Commission or the Mormon Church - that's different.) But I don't think any normal company has any business trying to dictate everything you eat and drink while travelling, provided you stay within the spend guidelines and don't violate other salient policies such as getting plastered on company business or driving while drunk.

I hope they are a damn good company to work for in other areas. Otherwise, I would tell them to fly a kite.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Athena53

I worked for a consulting firm with a "no-receipt, no-reimbursement" policy (which essentially meant no cash tips to hotel maids, curbside baggage guys, etc. were reimbursed). It was a royal pain. Once I didn't submit receipts for highway tolls and my boss and one of the beancounters called me and asked why! I think they did reimburse me but after that I made sure I had receipts for everything- even the 35 cent tolls on the friggin' Garden State Parkway.

A waste of good billable time and it always made me feel the company didn't trust me.

What do you do when you go through a toll that doesn't offer receipts?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Athena53

My father had a big battle with the IRS over no-receipt expenses. When you don't have a word of language in common and the vendor is illiterate besides, how are you supposed to get a receipt? Reason finally prevailed after months of back-and-forth. All they ended up dinging him on was a big check deducted in the wrong year. (IIRC he deducted it in the year he wrote it, not in the year the recipient received it. Something like 12/31 vs 1/2.) He hated the IRS for the rest of his life after that nonsense.

After reading all this I feel rather fortunate. I work for a 400+ person company that has about a dozen people that travel frequently. We have no official policy, but do have an unofficial travel agent that I no longer use. I book all my own flights, hotels, and cars. Would a travel agent ever book Southwest, Ryan Air, or Easyjet? Hell no, because they wouldn't get a commission!

A travel agent is alway going to book you on whatever he gets the best commission on. Our agent always uses Hertz. On my own I use Avis, National, and even Budget sometimes to save the company $.

I travel all over the world and $35/day food expense is not the same in Indiana, Tokyo, Taipei, Beijing, London,...

I often spend $50+ on a dinner for myself only. If I'm with a customer I always spend more.

If I tip a dollar or two I expense it with no questions asked.

I save parking garage coupons to save a few bucks/day.

I'm always trying to save the company money when it comes to travel. After booking a hotel I will often check the rates again before the arrival date to see if fares have lowered. It happens all the time and I cancel my original reservation and book again at the lower rate. Would a travel agent ever do this?

The company only pays for economy class air, but when there is a Biz fare sale, and I combine some of my trip with a LCC, I can persuade my boss to let me take the long hauls up front!

I agree that it is a pain to try and remember expenses paid in cash weeks (even days) after the fact. I alway bring blank expense forms with me and fill them out day by day.

Quote:

Originally Posted by indufan

What do you do when you go through a toll that doesn't offer receipts?

No reimbursement. That was the rule.

The firm is now down to about 3 people (from a high of 50) after the owner bet the future of the firm on some software developed by a European company that we were installing for a client. He hadn't done enough due diligence and it turned out to have a pretty interface and no guts. The client panicked and pulled the plug.

I guess there's a happy medium between letting people get away with expense-account robbery and demanding a receipt for every single expenditure.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loren Pechtel

All they ended up dinging him on was a big check deducted in the wrong year. (IIRC he deducted it in the year he wrote it, not in the year the recipient received it. Something like 12/31 vs 1/2.)

IIRC the rule is the postmark date, not date of receipt... unless you send it Fedex or similar in which case it's the date of receipt (since you could in theory call back a Fedex package to be returned).

My company does not reimburse for alcoholic beverages, but it also does not require itemized meal receipts. You can figure out the rest. :)

I used to volunteer for a small office that required a lot of traveling to conferences and such. Since the office was extremely small (about 10 people), our financial officer was able to review all the expenses. The travel policy was pretty simple- find the cheapest flights possible and include reciepts for anything you want to be reimbursed for. Limits were set for meals, so if you went over that, it came out of your own pocket.

Overall, the policy worked really well, but mainly because the office was so small.

The risk outweigh the benefit. Imagine what you could lose. :eek:

Quote:

Originally Posted by DevilBucsFlyer

Receipts aren't required for meals under $25. I seldom spend more than $10-$15 on my dinners (personal preference), so if I have some "unusual" expense such as paying for internet access someplace, I'll just tack it on to a cheap meal one day rather than separately identifying it on my expense report.

I just thought of another problem with padding meal expenses with "unusual" expenses. Generally speaking, your employer can deduct only 50% of meal expenses, even though they tend to reimburse you at 100%. So, they have to pay corporate income taxes on the other 50% (or it gets passed through to shareholders in the case of a Subchapter S corporation). So, any legitimate non-meal expenses that you "hide" in a meal reimbursement causes unnecessary taxes to be paid by your employer. Similarly, if you hide small meal expenses elsewhere, the employer's tax liability will be underreported, depriving the gov't of tax revenue it is entitled to.

I tend to agree with most of the people on this thread. One should take the extra time and be extra cautious to report everything correctly as per standards of the company. If someone wants to get rid of you they can easily go back and show falsified records... and think of how it would sound when you go to apply for another job and they ask you why you left your previous employer and you tell them you were caught submitting false expense reports.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Athena53

No reimbursement. That was the rule.

Don't go to Florida, unmanned tolls are all over the place.

Quote:

Originally Posted by NWA-PLAT

Would a travel agent ever book Southwest, Ryan Air, or Easyjet? Hell no, because they wouldn't get a commission!

They don't get a commission on any of it anymore, and haven't for a while.

Quote:

Originally Posted by indufan

They don't get a commission on any of it anymore, and haven't for a while.

They do get a commission (and/or some other incentive) from many of the airlines ... especially the international ones. And some get more from some than they had for a while before that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gleff

It was delivered in person--it was to the travel agent two blocks from home. IIRC what happened is that he wrote it but when he got there they were closed and he had to go back.