According to internal data gathered by TripLog, a leading enterprise mileage and expense tracking solution, over 1/4 (nearly 30%) of all mileage is overreported, which could potentially cost businesses millions of dollars per year in fraudulent reimbursements.
ISSAQUAH, Wash. /Mortgage and Finance News/ — According to internal data gathered by TripLog, a leading enterprise mileage and expense tracking solution, over 1/4 (nearly 30%) of all mileage is overreported, which could potentially cost businesses millions of dollars per year in fraudulent reimbursements.
Between January 2018 and January 2021, TripLog found that roughly 2.8 million trips were overreported. The 52.33 million miles reported among those trips were inflated by 27.2% for a total of 14.26 million miles.
For drivers reporting manually (that is, not using the app to automatically start tracking their mileage when they start driving), that number balloons to 28.9%. At 58 cents per mile, this would account for $8.2 million in fraudulent reimbursements.
For example, a driver may take a trip and report that it took 27 miles when in reality the trip only took 17 miles. TripLog’s system compares the route recorded by their app’s automatic mileage tracking features or a given manual mileage entry by the driver to Google Maps’ data.
If Google Maps says that the drive actually took 17 miles, that can result in overreporting. Thanks to TripLog, those trips were flagged and easily corrected, but companies using manual reporting and processing methods are far more likely to miss such errors.
“Companies still using outdated pen-and-paper forms of mileage tracking and expense processing may be losing out on thousands of dollars each year per driver due to inaccurate mileage claims,” said company CEO, Ted He. “Modern digital solutions, such as mileage tracking apps, are a powerful way to avoid such losses.”
The most common type of expense fraud is mileage reimbursement. Employees that travel long distances in their own vehicles often pad their mileage amounts in order to receive additional funding from their employer.
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, expense reporting fraud was on the rise. According to Chrome River’s 2019 Expense Fraud Survey, an average of 5% of employees committed expense reporting fraud that year. The most important piece of information, however, is how these expenses were being submitted.
Employees were most likely to commit expense reporting fraud when submitting manual or spreadsheet-tracked receipts to accounts payable. 9.1% of employees who submit expenses this way have committed fraudulent actions in their expense tracking, typically inflating small expenses that are less likely to be noticed.
To help stop these instances of fraud, solutions like TripLog have made it possible and affordable for firms to get exact mileage reports, put them all into a readable format, save time for the accounting team, and, most importantly, stop fraud in its tracks.
Learn more at: https://triplogmileage.com/
About TripLog, Inc.:
Located east of Seattle in Issaquah, Washington, TripLog has been helping businesses ranging from small to enterprise-scale handle their mileage claims and expense reimbursements for over ten years. TripLog’s intuitive app provides mobile employees with an easy-to-use system to automatically track their mileage when they start a drive, eliminating any guesswork and inaccuracies. In addition, their web dashboard gives administrators access to detailed data, providing increased oversight, allowing businesses to keep their clients’ teams accountable, and provide them with accurate reimbursements.
{Citation — Chrome River’s 2019 Expense Fraud Survey: https://info.emburse.com/rs/496-CPG-762/images/Chrome-River-White-Paper-Expense-Fraud-Survey.pdf]
Learn More: https://triplogmileage.com/
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