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.
Marcia Tal is the CEO of Tal Solutions and founder of PositivityTech: AI Risk Detection & Complaint Analytics. She previously served as an executive vice president in decision management at Citi.
Samuel Stern is a principal analyst with Forrester Research.
Saniye Burcu Alaybeyi is a senior research director for Gartner's Application Innovation Team. In college she studied AI and did her master's thesis in AI. At Gartner, she specializes in AI and IoT. She gives advice to technology and service providers and end users on topics such as explainable AI (XAI), general AI trends, use cases and business opportunities, key business issues and best practices to overcome AI barriers.
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:
