One in four travel expense reports contains errors

The study authors found that one in four travel expense reports is incorrect.

The good news is that 57 percent of these inaccuracies are corrected directly in accounting. The bad: In 15 percent of the erroneous statements, travelers intentionally provide incorrect information.

The amounts involved in deliberately incorrect statements are between ten and 30 euros in 50 percent of cases. In one third of the incorrect statements, the unjustified costs submitted for reimbursement are between 30 and 50 euros.

Popular tricks and violations

The current Business Traveller Report also deals with the topic of accounting fraud and compliance. One of the most popular tricks used to inflate travel expense reports is the billing of private expenses.

For example, 23 percent of respondents have already submitted private cab receipts. One in five respondents has already gone out to eat with friends or family at company expense (20 percent).

Equally popular is the deduction of private parking or fuel receipts (also 20 percent). People also like to cheat when it comes to meals allowances. A particularly large number of false claims are made for one-day trips, namely by extending the duration of a business trip on paper.

Thus, a higher per diem for meals is collected. In the run-up to the trip, i.e. when booking, 38 percent of business travelers do not adhere to the cost limit set by the travel policy.

23 percent do not always book through the prescribed channel and 19 percent choose providers other than those specified by the employer.

"Some of the erroneous billing is submitted fraudulently. However, the majority of errors are accidental. Especially in manual processes, it can quickly happen that a comma slips or a typo creeps in.

Simple transcription errors, ignorance of the legal framework, missing receipts or incomplete data contribute to incorrect billing".

says Götz Reinhardt, Managing Director at Concur DACH.

"Automated or digitized business travel management solutions not only reduce settlement processing time, but also eliminate many of the aforementioned sources of error.

They replace an unproductive, error-prone paper-based process and promote digitization within the company. In addition, they force compliance with travel policies and the so-called execution of travel based on their conformity (compliance)."

Missions of EU parliamentarians

It recently became public that dozens of members of the EU Parliament had not correctly accounted for their travel expenses. This is apparently a popular trick for claiming higher costs: Low-cost airlines were used, but a trip with the company car was accounted for.

In return, the members of parliament could be reimbursed 50 cents per kilometer allegedly driven. Cases like these affect both the public sector and companies in the private sector.

Concur's study finds that 15 percent of erroneous claims are made intentionally.