In the run up to Christmas, CEOs and MDs are limiting when employees can use corporate expense cards and how much they can spend.
According to technology and payments company Prepaid Financial Services (PFS), over 50% of UK workers with expense accounts have admitted filing false claims on their accounts.
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Noel Moran, PFS founder and chief executive officer, said: "As the festive season draws nearer, chiefs need to act quickly to curb employee partying at the expense of the bottom line.
A popular expense management tool in markets such as the US, data shows the balance loaded onto prepaid cards by employers has decreased from an average of £290 ($465) to £220 per month.
"Business leaders have always struggled to keep tabs on their employee’s expenses, but economic pressures have now made oversight of this spending essential," said Moran, explaining that Christmas can be an ‘especially pressing’ time.
"The opportunities for festivity are multiplied, but difficult economic times have left some employees facing delayed bonuses, so we’d expect the temptation to claim a surreptitious round of drinks on expenses to be even greater than usual."
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By GlobalDataPFS claims that prepaid technology can help reduce admin costs, allowing companies to monitor employee spending in real time, rather than through paper receipts.
Moran concludes: "We need to get smart on expenses and start separating essential, genuine costs from what some employees see as a festive salary supplement."
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