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Expense Report Fraud Will Cost Companies $1 Billion

Certify, a company that specializes in expense management software, wants to draw attention to the problem of expense report fraud.

It cites research from J.P. Morgan that U.S. companies will spend $186 billion on T&E expenses in 2015, $1 billion of which will be lost to fraud.

The median loss for organizations last year due to expense fraud was an average of more than $30,000, according to Certify. Companies with less than 100 employees have a 28 percent higher median fraud loss than those with 100 or more employees.

Expense report fraud can be broadly divided into four types: mischaracterized expenses, fictitious expenses, overstated expenses and multiple reimbursements.

The fifth largest T&E expense item is uncharacterized “miscellaneous” reporting, according to Certify.

An estimated 6.3 percent of all expense transactions are deemed to be out of compliance, but monitoring for compliance can lead to an estimated 70 percent reduction in noncompliant transactions.

Certify has created the infographic below to display these findings visually:

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