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.
Eric Prugh is chief product officer at PactSafe.
Mark Bornstein is the chief webinerd at On24.
Jamie Topolski currently is the Director of Alternative Payment Strategies at Fiserv. He is focused on delivering a cost-effective, comprehensive and integrated solution for clients migrating from magnetic stripe to EMV™ chip cards. Jamie currently serves on the Smart Card Alliance Payments Council Steering Committee and is the Vice Chair of the EMV Migration Forum Steering Committee.Previously, Jamie served on the EMVCo Board of Advisors and was the Manager of Global EMV Programs for Discover Financial Services. Jamie received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Duke University and Master of Business Administration from the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago.
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:
