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.
Lukasz Kozinski is a senior consultant with Point B, an integrated management consulting, venture investment and real estate development firm. He has expertise in solving complex functional and technical problems in systems implementations, system assessment and process improvement.
Hannah Berson is a principal with Point B, an integrated management consulting, venture investment and real estate development firm. She has consulting expertise that spans more than two decades in financial services, telecommunications and media and healthcare industries.
Richard Bloch is principal at Digital Healthcare I/O. He has more than 30 years of systems and software engineering experience. While at Microsoft, Bloch led feature development and earned numerous awards for applications. Through his engineering companies, Business Learning Incorporated, and Digital Healthcare I/O, Mr. Bloch’s systems and software expertise includes human-computer interaction (HCI) design and development, modeling, simulation and visualization (MS&V), and ISO and agile management practices across Government (various DoD agencies and the FAA), aerospace, satellite engineering, and healthcare technology domains.
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:
