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.
Grant Heckenkemper, CPA, is director of advisory services at L&H CPAs & Advisors in Dallas, where he advises founder-led companies on mergers and acquisitions, strategic finance and contract CFO engagements. He began his career in the audit practice at KPMG and is a CPA registered in the State of Texas.
Arun John is serving as director of insurance consulting at Virtusa, Arun John brings over 20 years of experience in Property & Casualty insurance technology, underwriting, and claims transformation. He leads strategic consulting and solutioning initiatives that help global insurance carriers modernize core policy administration and automate complex processes using generative AI, machine learning, and AR/VR accelerators. His career spans key consulting and product roles at Tech Mahindra, Cognizant, and IFFCO-Tokio. He holds an
engineering degree from Periyar University and AWS credentials in Generative AI project
planning.
Nadia van de Walle is the head of banking inclusion at Wells Fargo.
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:
