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.
Richard A. Newman is a partner at Arent Fox LLP and advises clients in the areas of real estate and finance, with special emphasis on municipal finance, project finance, and the representation of nonprofit organizations.
By Kostas Tzoumas, co-founder and CEO of data Artisans and one of the original creators of Apache Flink. He is the co-author of Introduction to Apache Flink: Stream Processing for Real Time and Beyond.
Kelly Stirman is the vice president of strategy at Dremio. In this capacity, he oversees the planning, development and execution of Dremio’s strategic initiatives that are centered on messaging, brand awareness, customer satisfaction and business development. Previously he was VP of strategy at MongoDB where he worked closely with customers, partners, and the open source community. For more than 15 years he has worked at the forefront of database technologies. Prior to MongoDB, Kelly served in executive and leadership roles at Hadapt, MarkLogic, PeopleSoft, GE, and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
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:
