Employees working from home during the coronavirus pandemic claimed some outlandish expenses this year, including pricey exercise bikes, facelifts and private jets.
Emburse, an expense management software company, released a compilation Wednesday of some of the craziest expenses it has seen claimed this year, some of which were actually approved. That included $1,895, which was approved as a contribution for an employee's Peloton Bike under the explanation of “for health and wellness.” On the other hand, a $7,600 expense claim for a facelift was submitted under the category of “repairs and maintenance” but was rejected, despite the pressing need to look one’s best during a Zoom meeting.
Bob Legters is the chief product officer of banking and payments for FIS. For the past two decades he has focused his career on products and services support for clients. He has spent 17 of those years in a leadership role with groups ranging from five to 200 employees. Before joining FIS, Legters worked with the AAA Automobile Club and various privately held organizations in the community market.
Nick Campbell is head of product strategy and innovation at Fraedom.
Srinivasa Vegi serves as president of data analytics and artificial intelligence at DMI, where he is responsible for business strategy, practice building and global project delivery. With 25-plus years of experience in information systems and 18-plus years of experience specific to data analytics, Dr. Vegi provides strategic guidance for customers to tame big data and achieve success using business intelligence, predictive analytics, AI and machine learning.
Prior to joining DMI, Dr. Vegi was at Wipro, in various capacities as head of analytics practice, APAC , head of analytics for global media and telecommunications, VP and head of the Integrated Solutions Group for Analytics Service Line and subsequently for the healthcare and lifesciences business unit.
As an accomplished business leader in strategic planning and execution, he excels at building niche competencies, delivering large transformational programs supporting growth and leveraging digital, big data, and cloud technologies impacting business outcomes. Dr. Vegi has helped many companies across varied business domains in their efforts to deploy data and analytics solutions.
Dr. Vegi earned his Ph.D. in computer science from Andhra University and his Bachelors in civil engineering from the National Institute of Technology, both in India. He has had several articles featured in trade journals.
Some expenses weren’t for working from home, but more about getting out of the house safely. An expense claim for a private jet charter costing over $20,000 was submitted and approved under the explanation of “required to limit COVID exposure for international shoots.” Another travel-related expense claim was $2,500 for a helicopter ride, which was not approved.
The $79 expense claim for a dog crate could perhaps be used for travel at some point when that's safer, but in these times it was more plausibly to provide "crate training [for] a new COVID puppy to not run into Zoom meetings."
Below is an infographic produced by Emburse showing this and several other head-scratching claims:
