Why employee expenses are going rogue – and how to stop it happening in your startup

In the current market downturn, startups are looking to tighten their belts. There’s no more obvious place to start than some of the more, shall we say, expendable employee expenses. Can that work trip be a Zoom call instead? Why the Uber Black and not just regular Uber? Is that ‘client entertainment’ really for the client?

Employee expenses have changed a little lately, the pandemic blurred the lines between ‘personal’ and ‘business’. With those changes, there’s been increasing looseness and ambiguity around business expenses. According to the recent SAP Concur & Oversight Spend Insight Report, expense violations rose significantly between 2020 and 2021, with “excessive personal expenses” up by 21.8 per cent. One of the biggest problem areas was mileage – if you’ve ever had to keep a logbook, you’re probably letting out an audible groan right now.

The report suggests that “employees are pushing limits where they feel they can – spending more for a meal, for example, because overall spending is down or expensing meals even when they’re working from home”.

Visit StartUp Daily to read the full article and learn more how businesses like yours manage these scenarios and get ideas on what you can do to run your processes better.

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