Business travel expenses are often ridiculous
Hotel bills. Food. Rental cars. These are the typical items you will find on a business traveler’s expense report.
But sometimes, business travelers get a little more creative with how they spend their company’s money.
Every winter since 2013, Certify, a company that tracks business expenses, has asked business travelers and finance professionals to share the craziest expenses they have submitted or reviewed over the past year.
To celebrate the five-year anniversary of this survey, Certify has prepared a list of the “best of the best” among these expenses. Some, but not all, were approved.
The most expensive expense report included $10,000 in flight changes submitted this year. It was not approved, perhaps because the employee missed the flight because he or she ended up in jail.
The chief financial officer also pointed out that the hotel bill included “repairing hole punched in the wall.”
Another expensive request for reimbursement was a $6,500 bill for a helicopter ride to work in 2017. The employee “needed to make it to a client meeting,” the chief information officer of the company wrote.
That too was not approved.
But a hang glider ride in 2017 was approved, even with a $2,000 price tag. The reason for the hang glider? “To avoid a divorce,” the secretary treasurer of the company said, without elaborating.
The price of towing a vehicle was also considered an acceptable expense. It cost $150 in 2014. The employee “parked illegally due to the importance of appointment,” the web designer of the company said.
Not all of the expenses involved transportation.
One employee rented a llama in 2016 for $150.
The verdict? Approved. “Photographer wanted a llama in the picture,” the vice president of marketing for the company said.
Another animal-related expenditure was boarding for a pet snake in 2017.
It cost $30 a day. It was approved. “Critical expertise needed with limited resources,” is how the independent rental owner described the reasoning for the approval.
Not approved was a separate hotel room for root vegetables in 2015. It would have cost $85. The salesman was transporting garlic samples.
“I wanted a separate room for garlic samples; couldn’t stand the smell,” the salesman said.
Some employers have been generous with their approval of expenses.
One employee got to expense tickets to a Cher concert for $125 in 2014.
Another got to expense an $8,000 Rolex to show appreciation to a customer.
But perhaps the most bizarre item that was expensed was a human skull.
How much is a human skull worth? It cost $800 in 2013.
The expense was reimbursed, but even the finance manager who approved it acknowledged how bizarre it was.
“Purchasing a human skull for a medical experiment, I would say classifies as an ‘out-of-the-ordinary’ expense,” the manager said.