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.
Ofir Nir is the chief financial officer at Flatworld Solutions, where he leads global finance operations across accounting, FP&A and financial systems. With over 20 years of experience, including senior finance roles at GE and SUEZ and earlier in audit at KPMG, his work focuses on building scalable, audit-ready finance functions in private equity-backed environments. He has led ERP implementations, process standardization efforts, and control enhancements, with a focus on ensuring finance organizations can support automation and growth through disciplined operations and reliable data.
Tom Vladeck is co-founder of Recast and holds a master's degree from LSE and an MBA from Wharton. Prior to co-founding Recast, he built a quantitative market research firm.
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:
