Frustrated travellers "boost" claims, reveals KDS
Business travellers frustrated with "archaic or unhelpful" claim systems may be "fiddling" their expenses, an IT company has claimed.
According to a survey by KDS, a travel IT company, 13% of the 364 travel professionals polled admitted bumping up their costs.
"Staff may be padding their expenses as ‘retaliation' for enduring convoluted claims procedures," said KDS.
"24% say they fail to claim back all their expenses, often losing track of receipts; 10% say this can cost them as much as €100 personally per claim; 11% have to wait over a month to be reimbursed.
"In most cases, the amounts over-claimed came to less than €50."
Expense claims are also time consuming, according to the figures - 23% of travellers spend more than one hour on claims while 35% said they spend between 30 minutes and an hour.
Yves Weisselberger, KDS' chief executive, said: "Expense claims remain a bête noire for many employees, and this survey shows how a minority seek to even the score.
"The greater message of this study is that, by sticking with time-intensive systems, companies are forsaking important cost-savings when they need them most, and submerging their people in admin when they should be out winning business."
KDS quoted a previous study by American Express and management consulting firm AT Kearney which found that associated "indirect administrative costs" amount to 4.6% of expenditure.
According to KDS, the report argued that better practices could reduce the figure to 2.1%.
"The adoption of automated expense account management would make up a significant proportion of this reduction," KDS said.
In total, 16% of US respondents admitted to "inflating their expenses," compared to 10% of French and 9% from the UK.
But the French said they did so more often with restaurant bills the favoured method. British and US travellers prefer taxi fares.
"Given the frustrations of expense claim processes, it is perhaps surprising that not more employees fiddle - or admit to fiddling - their expenses," said KDS.
www.kds.com