Mooncard study: when expense accounts undermine executives' finances

While the issue of fraud regularly comes to the fore when dealing with the subject of expense accountthe financial impact it can have on business travellers remains less exposed. Mooncard worked with Ifop to survey a thousand executives at the beginning of the summer. The aim was to find out about their habits and, above all, their grievances regarding the reimbursement of their business expenses.

Unsurprisingly, the subject generates a certain amount of frustration. And Mooncard shared a number of testimonials illustrating just how much room for improvement still exists in many French companies. Some of the responses to the question " What anecdotes come to mind when you think about your expense accounts? "A few "pearls" leave you wondering. " The time when I bought the sandwich was refused - it should have been during the meeting I was chairing! "Don't move, I'm going to buy a sandwich and I'll be right back". " ; " Spending 10 minutes scanning a €1.5 car park ticket"; "A colleague who was entitled to take a meal when travelling was not hungry and had settled for a Perrier, and was refused reimbursement on the grounds that restaurants were reimbursed but not bars". ". These "office briefs" might be easy on the eye, if they didn't reveal a deep-seated malaise.

According to the figures released by Mooncard, 30% executives who make expense claims have already been in financial difficulty because of an advance on business expenses. And among them 58% have already been in a situation of bank overdraft. The figure rises to 64% for those who spend on fuel, due to inflation in the price of petrol. This trend is more marked in the provinces, where 60% of executives incur this type of expenditure, compared with 37% for executives in the Paris region. Conversely teleworking effectively - and logically - reduces the petrol budget. The figure drops from 71% for managers who work entirely face-to-face to 46% for those who telework at least 1 day a week. Fuel is the fourth most common type of expense claim, behind catering (87%), transport (taxis), rail and air (81%) and hotels (60%).

But according to the Mooncard study, teleworkers are no less exposed to the problem of expense claims. While 73% of managers who work entirely face-to-face have to write up expense claims, the figure rises to 82% for those who telework at least one day a week.

However, as the French fintech points out, the expense account all too often involves red tape, frustration and uncertainty. In almost half of cases (47%), the repayment period would reach two weeks or moreonly 18% of companies reimbursed these costs in less than a week. And the patience demanded of managers in large companies is particularly put to the test, since 53% of large companies exceed the two-week repayment deadline, compared with 37% of VSEs.

Faced with procedures that are too long and too complex, managers often throw in the towel. 44% of those questioned had given up on an expense claim. Conversely, the uncertainties and frustrations generated by expense claims may explain some fraud. Mooncard believes that " This pressure seems to push some managers to 'make up for it' on the back of the company: 66% of those who have already been in financial difficulty have also written off personal expenses, compared with 18% on average. ".

" We knew that expense accounts put a strain on executives' finances, but not to this extent. "confesses Pierre-Yves Roizot, CEO of Mooncard. " The results of this survey should give us cause for alarm, as inflation is likely to rapidly worsen the situation. They also invite us to question the very concept of expense accounts: is it still normal to ask employees to advance money to their employer? At a time when we have all the tools we need to abolish advances of expenses, this would be a real social victory. "says Pierre-Yves Roizot.