Customer Reviews

How To Pad Your Expense Report...And Get Away With It!, Revised Edition

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Employee X is obviously very good at thinking up ways to cheat his employer. I am a Controller at a company that has about 75 expense filers. After I read the book I reviewed some old expense reports and realized that we had no way to catch some of the fraud the "author" recommends. I dug deeper and looked at the sales department expenses and was floored by the amount of errors and outright cheating. Thanks to Employee X we looked at ways to improve our auditing. We ended up going with a web product called expense expert and our employees suddenly started submitting smaller expense reports and we could easily spot "mistakes". Read the book if you are in finance but keep it away from your sales people.

While I am sure the book would have made sense in the nineties this is just WAY outdated today. 90% of what the author suggests would never work in today's organizations. I bought the book thinking I would get insight in my day to day job ( I'm a Fraud Manager at a Bank ) all it did was provide some amusing reading for a day . I would recommend the kindle version ( cheaper ) if you really feel curious .

Over 90% of these techniques will not work today, unless your company still uses the pencil and paper accounting methods. With the automation used in travel bookings, these ideas are silly.

For example, is it realistic to buy a cheap airline ticket, and then buy the same ticket at an inflated fare just before departure? Her theory states that you should fly on the discounted airfare, and submit the expensive one on your expense report (and then get a refund). Perhaps her tips could be useful for a mom-and-pop operation.

Or similarly, after you check out of a hotel and get your receipt, go back and negotiate a lower rate. You then submit the original receipt for reimbursement, and pocket the difference.

In another example, she directs the reader what to do if you get caught. First, you should deny, deny, deny. Then, point the finger at the accuser, and ask what basis they have for questioning your expense reports. Finally, threaten that you will sue the company (but it doesn't state what to sue for). If you were caught falsifying receipts, do you think these actions would convince anybody of your innocence?

Other than stealing/buying stacks of blank receipts, the ideas are fictional. Another method that is realistic is to print receipts on your PC, pasting company logos for believability. These are feasible, and could actually be accomplished.

If you have any experience with expense reports in the past decade, you will find this book a waste of time. It's more humorous than practical. Enjoy!

It all sounds too good to be true. These days there is so many good tools to enforce expense report compliance.
I've used e.g. ABUKAI Expenses for my expense reports [...]. You take photos of your receipts with your phone, then it creates the expense report for me automatically. It makes life so much easier, but also ensures compliance. Better for the company an for me as an employee... We spend too much time on expense reporting in this world... and now we even write books about it. :-)