Nearly one in five employees has cheated their employers through their expense claims according to a new survey released by KDS. The company’s online survey of almost 400 business travellers conducted in…
Nearly one in five employees has cheated their employers through their expense claims according to a new survey released by KDS. The company’s online survey of almost 400 business travellers conducted in May and June reveals that the Americans and French are most inclined to fiddle their expenses, followed by the Germans and then the British.
The KDS survey revealed that 21.4% of American and 20.6% of French respondents had cheated on expense claims, compared with 16.1% of Germans and 13% of British respondents. The majority of people who confessed to having inflated their expenses felt that the amounts involved were insignificant at less than €5. However, around 11% of UK based respondents and nearly 20% of French respondents who admitted to cheating had falsified their expenses by €50 or more.
The expense item perceived by American and British travellers as most open to abuse was taxi charges, whilst in France and Germany claims for business mileage were seen as the most vulnerable.
In contrast, however, 60% of those surveyed said that they had not claimed legitimate expenses in the past, mainly due to lost receipts or because they had simply forgotten that they had incurred expenses in the first place.
The majority of respondents were submitting average expense claims of between €500 and €1,000 at a time.
Yves Weisselberger, CEO of KDS, observes, “In our experience, most business travellers are honest, but it is vital that companies have robust systems in place to verify expense claims. It is, of course, wholly unacceptable for employees to defraud their employers, but equally they should not be expected to pay legitimate expenses without being reimbursed.”
“Nearly half of the respondents in our survey said that their companies did not have an online expense management system, which in itself appears surprising. The technology is currently available to make the whole process of expense management, verification and payment more efficient and transparent, and we believe that companies and their employees would see significant benefits from implementing these systems.”
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
