Top Signs of Expense Reimbursement Fraud and How to Stop it from Happening

Top Signs of Expense any company that sends employees on business trips has to have some sort of expense management so travel costs are reimbursed. These companies also have to be concerned with reimbursement fraud, as employees might try and pull a fast one and report an expense that wasn't for business purposes.

According to Washington's State Auditors Office, there are numerous red flags an employee might be committing reimbursement fraud, including:

Expenses are higher than previous years: Unless a company is in its first year, chances are they have sent employees to the same destination multiple times. That being said, when it comes time to add up expenses for those trips, if they are much higher than the previous year there could have been some reimbursement fraud. However, small increases likely shouldn't be cause for concern as costs for food and travel can fluctuate from year-to-year.

Expenses are claimed on non-work days: If a trip lasts through the weekend, employees might be inclined to report business expenses on days they aren't working. While they might feel as though this is acceptable, it isn't and could constitute reimbursement fraud. Employees can only report expenses that are considered work related, and that doesn't include anything on days that they aren't working.

How can organizations prevent reimbursement fraud?

Any company that begins to notice employees are falsely reporting expenses might want to do some research and figure out ways to prevent this from happening.

Require original documentation. In order to ensure that all business expenses are legitimate, companies should require employees to provide original documentation, such as receipts, StoneBridge Business Partners noted. These documents should be turned in after a trip and kept on file for auditing.

Employ a travel reimbursement policy. One of the best ways to keep everything on the up and up with expense reporting is to have a solid policy in place. Employees should have guidelines as to what can and can't be reported as an expense. These guidelines should be easily accessible to anyone who will be embarking on a business trip.

Have a formal review process. No matter how honest companies feel their employees are, a formal review process for expenses is necessary. This gives managers and supervisors the opportunity to audit expense reports, and ensure they are legitimate.

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Make Your Next Business Trip Fuss-Free with Certify

From Booking to Kayak, TripAdvisor to Expedia, there's no shortage of online travel websites that you and your employees have likely spent a lot of time on, setting up the next business trip on the schedule. As helpful as these website may be however - especially compared to what the booking process was like prior to the advent of the Internet they're far from being user-friendly. And the process is only complicated further when you start to think about all the expenses that you or your workers will need to keep track of for billing purposes.

Fortunately, Certify has the tools you need to make booking a whole lot easier. Take a look at the following tips from now on when you or your employees need to schedule a trip to another part of the U.S. or the world.

Log in to Certify. Start out by entering the address of Certify into your web browser, whether that's through your personal computer, tablet or handheld device. Then enter your login identification. This really expedites the process because this data helps the system know who the user is, what their travel preferences are and whether they have any airfare credits that they may be able to use.

Input travel itinerary. Here's where the system needs more information from the user. Simply enter the travel booking details you have, such as the flight, hotel and/or rental car. Once the system knows when the travel period will be - which, like the other information, can be entered in the requested area - a variety of potential vendors will appear. The one chosen, of course, is a decision for you and/or your employee.

Book the chosen selection. Once you or your workers decide on the appropriate vendor, it should all be smooth sailing from there. In fact, just to confirm, Certify will email you and your worker about the most important details of the upcoming travel itinerary. It's a good idea to really look this over as it will contain information that is crucial to the "en route" portion of the trip going smoothly.

But even if there is a problem - no sweat. So long as you make the appropriate changes within 24 hours, you won't have to worry about incurring a penalty. As far as the expense recording goes, most of that is take care of.

By booking a trip through Certify, the system automatically creates an expense reports document that you or your employee can easily fill out on an as-needed basis.

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Certify Automatically Links Credit Card Data to Expenses

From mobile phone receipt capture to quick and easy reimbursements, we make sure the expense reporting process is simple and straightforward. Certify promises to make travel and expense easy for you, and we take that promise seriously. From mobile phone receipt capture to quick and easy reimbursements, we make sure the expense reporting process is simple and straightforward.

One of the ways we ensure this is by automatically linking credit card data to expenses. No more trying to match up receipts and credit card statements – we do it for you. Even if you’ve already processed and reimbursed the expense!

Certify works directly with the credit companies and the issuing banks to automatically receive your corporate credit card data in Certify. We receive nightly data feeds from all of the major credit card companies, including American Express, Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and Diner’s Club. So you can simply swipe your credit card today for a business lunch, and see it tomorrow in your Certify Wallet. It’s that simple!

Here’s how it works: On Monday, Fred makes a $32 purchase using his company credit card. Fred then uses Certify Mobile to capture the receipt and expense details and synchronizes to his Certify account.

In Fred’s excitement to use Certify he does not wait for the credit card charge to be imported to his Certify Wallet and decides to create an expense report using just the receipt. Later on Monday, Fred creates and submits his expense report.

On Thursday, Fred’s company credit card sends the $32 transaction to Fred’s Certify Wallet. On Tuesday, Fred’s approver's quickly approve his expense report and send it to the Accounting team for final processing. On Wednesday, the Accounting team processes his expense report for reimbursement. And here’s where the late credit card linking feature comes in! This feature automatically searches "late" credit card transactions, and then automatically reconciles them by identifying the late credit card expenses and linking them with the matching expense that has already been submitted for approval or has been processed.

When the matching expense is linked with the correct credit card, the expense is then “Imported”, and the "late" expense is deleted from Fred’s Certify Wallet. Pretty nice, right?

With Certify, there’s no need to waste time trying to match receipts to credit card statements when it can be done for you automatically. Let us do all that pesky expense reporting work for you, so you can focus on more important tasks.

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With the 6 Million Receipts Can't Be Wrong

Each quarter, the Certify SpendSmart Report reveals how business travelers are spending the corporate dime while on the road. The report analyzes Certify's most recent business expense and vendor ratings data, providing valuable insights to Certify clients as well s the corporate T&E industry at large.

One expense category that the SpendSmart Report reviews is restaurants. The restaurant summary is a snapshot of the most frequently expensed restaurants, top rated restaurants, and the most expense restaurants by meal type. Some of the top rating in the restaurant summary include:

Most Expensed Restaurants Starbucks McDonald's Subway

Top Rated Restaurants Chick-Fil-A Chipotle Dunkin Donuts/Olive Garden

Most Expensed by Meal Breakfast - Starbucks Lunch - McDonald's Dinner - McDonald's

The SpendSmart Report offers insight into where and how much money business travelers are spending while on the road. It also shows the competition among the varying companies for the business traveler's buck. This quarter's report highlighted a new competitor on the scene. Seamless, an online and mobile company that allows you to order food for delivery and pickup from over 12,000 restaurants replaced Starbucks as the most expensed vendor in New York City. Seamless has over one million members, and spans across 1,000 cities in the US, with over 80 cuisines to choose from. As CEO of Certify, Robert Neveu, told CNN in a recent article, "It's Seamless over Starbucks for business travelers...Seamless is aggregating a lot of the meal traffic." Neveu explained that business travelers want something fast, convenient, and of reasonable quality and price. Indeed, Seamless allows you to search, check prices, and read reviews and ratings, which is especially valuable for business travelers in new cities on a budget.

This quarter's report also found that fast food is still number one in the life of a business traveler, with Starbucks and McDonald's continuing to be the top two most expensed restaurants, with a reported low average speed of $8.17 at McDonald's to a high average spend of $39.83 at Panera bread.

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