Magazine |
Expense fiddling no longer tolerated

Fiddling one’s expenses is no longer tolerated following last year’s MPs expenses’ scandal.

Public acceptance of expense fiddling in the workplace has halved since last year according to new research from GlobalExpense, the expenses software specialist. In previous years over a third of people accepted that exaggerating claims was OK some or all of the time. But the figure dropped in 2009 to just 14% of respondents who stated they found this acceptable.

Just 15% of expense-claiming employees exaggerate their expenses, but of those who do 13% increase their claims by up to 25%.

Those who do fiddle their expenses are not trusted by their colleagues, as 75% of those surveyed claimed they would not trust someone who fiddles their expenses with other areas of work.

The respondents said that there are often legitimate reasons why they exaggerate claims. The majority of people cited reasons of unfairness as the main cause of over claiming. Seventy-one per cent of respondents said it could be justified if an employer didn’t reimburse costs. Other reasons cited by the respondents included those who stated it was justified if an employer took a long time to reimburse them or if they didn’t feel their salary is fair it was justified.

But responsible employers will need to take a greater interest in their employees’ claims and check their policies if they are to combat this problem as 77% of employees said their employer never queried their expense claim, GlobalExpense reported.

07/01/10