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.
Kron will serve on the company’s Executive Committee and will have full management responsibility of the Finance, Accounting, and Corporate Technology teams.
Mohit “Mo” Sahgal is the vice president of analytics at Paradigm Technology, a technology and business consulting firm. He is an accomplished senior executive with decades of management consulting experience. He also has extensive expertise in data warehousing, enterprise information architecture and complex data integration. Mo has held various leadership positions including senior executive at Accenture, partner at Capco, partner at IBM and executive director at Ernst & Young LLP. His LinkedIn profile can be found here.
Chris Raimondo leads EY’s Robotics and Intelligent Automation practice for the Insurance sector. Chris has more than 15 years of Insurance process improvement and technology experience. In addition to leading US- and Canada-based insurance organizations through large-scale operational transformation programs, Chris has been involved as a business architect and program advisor in insurance operational and technology transformation programs across Europe, Asia-Pacific and Australia.
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:
