ONE IN FIVE EMPLOYEES CHEATS ON EXPENSE CLAIMS
Paris, June 26, 2007 – Nearly one in five employees has cheated their employers through their expense claims according to a new survey released today by KDS, European leader in on-demand travel and expense. The company’s online survey of almost 400 business travellers conducted in May and June reveals that the Americans and French are most inclined to fiddle their expenses, followed by the Germans and then the British.
The KDS survey revealed that 21.4% of American and 20.6% of French respondents had cheated on expense claims, compared with 16.1% of Germans and 13% of British respondents. The majority of people who confessed to having inflated their expenses felt that the amounts involved were insignificant at less than €5. However, around 11% of UK based respondents and nearly 20% of French respondents who admitted to cheating had falsified their expenses by €50 or more.
The expense item perceived by American and British travellers as most open to abuse was taxi charges, whilst in France and Germany claims for business mileage were seen as the most vulnerable.
In contrast, however, 60% of those surveyed said that they had not claimed legitimate expenses in the past, mainly due to lost receipts or because they had simply forgotten that they had incurred expenses in the first place.
The majority of respondents were submitting average expense claims of between €500 and €1,000 at a time.
Yves Weisselberger, CEO of KDS, observes, “In our experience, most business travellers are honest, but it is vital that companies have robust systems in place to verify expense claims. It is, of course, wholly unacceptable for employees to defraud their employers, but equally they should not be expected to pay legitimate expenses without being reimbursed.
“Nearly half of the respondents in our survey said that their companies did not have an online expense management system, which in itself appears surprising. The technology is currently available to make the whole process of expense management, verification and payment more efficient and transparent, and we believe that companies and their employees would see significant benefits from implementing these systems.”
A full report on the KDS expense survey is available for download at www.kds.com.
ENDS
Press Contacts:
Melanie Hanus / Marc Cornelius
KDS / 80:20 PR
+33 1 46 29 58 88 / +44 (0)20 7924 7576
[email protected] / [email protected]
Notes to Editors:
KDS on-demand travel and expense offers a completely integrated solution for travel and expense management, addressing essential needs ranging from travel policy definition and enforcement, to online travel self-booking, to automated travel expense processing and beyond. Every critical procedure can be completed through the KDS ASP offering, resulting in greater efficiencies and associated financial benefits. In addition, KDS offers the most extensive back-end connectivity to airline, car, rail and hotel providers in the industry, ensuring optimized pricing and up-to-the-minute inventory control. For more information, visit www.kds.com.
KDS
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