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.
Gregory Touhill, CISSP, CISM, is former U.S. CISO and president at Cyxtera Federal Group, and a retired brigadier general in the USAF, and a member of the ISACA.
Martin Doyle is CEO and founder of DQ Global, a data quality software company based in the UK. With an engineering background, Martin previously ran a CRM Software business. He has gained a wealth of knowledge and experience over the years and has established himself as a data quality improvement evangelist and an industry expert.
Matt Zeiler, founder and CEO of Clarifai, is a machine learning Ph.D. and thought leader pioneering the field of applied artificial intelligence (AI). Matt's groundbreaking research in computer vision alongside renowned machine learning experts Geoff Hinton and Yann LeCun has propelled the image recognition industry from theory to real-world application. Since starting Clarifai in 2013, Matt has evolved his award-winning research into developer-friendly products that allow enterprises to quickly and seamlessly integrate AI into their workflows and customer experiences. Today, Clarifai is a leading independent AI company.
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:
