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.
Chris Corrado is CEO, Americas for Squirro. Corrado has extensive experience in scaling companies as well as building and operating technology platforms on a global scale. Prior to joining Squirro, Corrado was CIO at CardWorks, a leading credit and payments company, where he was responsible for data, technology and digital. Before that, he was CEO at Sitehands, the world's first IT field services marketplace. He also served as chief operating officer at the London Stock Exchange Group and held CXO positions at leading financial institutions such as MSCI, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch and UBS. His background also includes scaling companies in the telecoms and e-commerce industries including Asurion, eBay and AT&T. In addition, he was an Advisory board member for Crypto.com.
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:
