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.
Mikhail Cook is senior vice president at EXOS Technologies.
Abby Mann is a consultant at X by 2. She is currently playing a senior developer role on a modernization project for a health care client’s web application and providing oversight for an internal team of developers working on an application using React/Redux. Previous projects include two years on a data warehousing project in the health insurance domain and working on a single page application for a client in the life insurance domain. Abby graduated from Rose-Hulman in 2016 with a double major in math and computer science and joined X by 2 shortly after graduation.
Eric Fuller is President & CEO of U.S. Xpress Enterprises, one of the nation’s largest asset-based trucking companies that employs nearly 10,000.
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:
