Employees working from home during the coronavirus pandemic claimed some outlandish expenses this year, including pricey exercise bikes, facelifts and private jets.
Emburse, an expense management software company, released a compilation Wednesday of some of the craziest expenses it has seen claimed this year, some of which were actually approved. That included $1,895, which was approved as a contribution for an employee's Peloton Bike under the explanation of “for health and wellness.” On the other hand, a $7,600 expense claim for a facelift was submitted under the category of “repairs and maintenance” but was rejected, despite the pressing need to look one’s best during a Zoom meeting.
Raghu Mittal is a general manager at EarnIn, a financial technology company providing earned wage access and financial tools to hourly and salaried workers. He previously led corporate and business development at several companies including Meta, Samsung and Dell.
Jill Eubank is executive vice president, business professionals for finance and accounting, at Randstad USA.
Andreas Schindler is the founder and CEO of dnl.ai, an AI audit technology company he spun out of the Technische Universität Berlin in 2019, incubated at the university's Centre for Entrepreneurship. He has spent the last eight years building AI systems for the people who audit financial statements — software that structures audit procedures, validates figures, and ties documentation back to its supporting evidence. Today dnl.ai serves more than 130 accounting firms and 15,000 auditors, including teams at KPMG, BDO and RSM, and the platform has supported more than 60,000 audits. It is ISO 27001 certified and hosted in the EU and Australia. Schindler writes and speaks on how audit standards should account for AI-assisted evidence. He holds a Master of Science in Finance & Accounting and a Bachelor of Laws in business law (Wirtschaftsrecht), both from FOM Hochschule für Oekonomie & Management.
Some expenses weren’t for working from home, but more about getting out of the house safely. An expense claim for a private jet charter costing over $20,000 was submitted and approved under the explanation of “required to limit COVID exposure for international shoots.” Another travel-related expense claim was $2,500 for a helicopter ride, which was not approved.
The $79 expense claim for a dog crate could perhaps be used for travel at some point when that's safer, but in these times it was more plausibly to provide "crate training [for] a new COVID puppy to not run into Zoom meetings."
Below is an infographic produced by Emburse showing this and several other head-scratching claims:
