Dive Brief:

• What do new cars, rental homes, vacations, flat-screen TVs, toilet paper and doggie day spas have in common? They are all listed among the improper expense report requests chief financial officers received within the past few years, according to a recent survey.
• Worse, a Robert Half Management Resources survey of CFOs found that those types of off the wall requests for reimbursement show "little sign of decline."
• In fact, only 11% of those executives reported a drop in inappropriate requests since the last time they were asked.

Dive Insight:

Tim Hird, executive director of Robert Half Management Resources, said the outlandish and even funny requests are extreme examples of what can be a serious problem for employers, as out-of-line expense reports are costly – both to the company's bottom line and to the careers of the employees who somehow think it's okay to submit them.

Hird added employers need to simplify the reimbursement process, and clearly communicate and make it accessible to the entire workforce. "Take a big-picture view of the program," he says. "Is it spelled out completely? Are you using the latest tools available? Removing ambiguity can help reduce the number of problematic requests."

And if an employee asks to be reimbursed for "a side of beef" or "dance lessons" (both showed up on the survey list), it may be time to take a look at the expense reimbursement/reporting process.