An Expensive Business

With the advent of the economic downturn, the daily press is awash with colourful narratives in relation to the pecuniary adventures of various employees (both private sector and State) who sallied forth during the salad days, corporate visa card in hand, and spent company money like it was going out of fashion.Some truly hair raising faux James Bond adventures  have been documented, involving private jets, exotic locations and palatial hotels where the pay-per-view and mini-bar rolled all night long.

It is somewhat disheartening to think that  incidents such as those which are now coming to light were allowed to occur in these organisations, somehow evading the combined attention of the responsible budget holder as well as internal and external compliance checks.

It seems that largesse was not only justified by claimants who felt they were “worth it”, but the excesses were either conveniently ignored or tolerated at the responsible approver level also.

From a systems perspective, one can implement controls to manage the expenses process which
- prevent claims being raised by unauthorised persons or on behalf of unauthorised persons
- prevent claims being raised outside of ones area of budget responsibility
- can enforce multiple levels of approval depending on the materiality of the claim involved
- have upper limits on the amounts claimable
- include business logic to enforce corporate policy in relation to expenses claims
- provide a complete and secure electronic audit trail of expense claims and the related sign offs

However, such a system must also be accompanied by a culture where all such corporate expenditure is subjected to rigorous and impartial review by the appropriate authority. Perhaps now that the bubble has burst, shareholders and the taxpayer can expect those appointed on their behalf to manage corporate and State organisations to cast a more critical eye at the expenses of employees.