How to curb transport expenses corruption by your staffs

Employee Corruption
Companies can mitigate exposure to employee corruption by:

• Hiring ethical people. 
• Developing, documenting, and regularly communicating high ethical standards for all business dealings and activities. 
• Ensuring that ethics program training and manuals include practical guidance for the real situations faced by employees.
• Insisting that company leadership set a high ethical example and “play by the rules.” Developing a culture that supports, and expects, the reporting of ethical lapses. 
• Taking appropriate, consistent action when ethical issues arise and violations occur. 

CASE STUDY

Time and Expense Issues 

George, an employee of ABC Company, travels extensively on company business. George's manager routinely approves his expense account after only a cursory examination. This cursory review has helped George find several ways to “beat the system” and obtain reimbursement payments for which he is not entitled. 

How does George take advantage of his employer? Mischaracterization of meal and entertainment expenses—George and his friends frequently go out to dinner at expensive restaurants in the city.  

George charges these meals on the company credit card and submits an expense report that falsely indicates he was entertaining clients and conducting other company business. 

Overstated expenses—George collects blank receipts from taxi cab drivers and other sources, completes these receipts to indicate a higher expense than was actually incurred, and submits the receipts for company reimbursement. 

Fictitious receipts—George's business travels sometimes include meals that are paid for by business associates or included as part of an event he is attending. In these cases, George uses his personal computer to produce a counterfeit “receipt” for separate meals that never took place and submits the fictitious receipt. 

Altered receipts—George alters receipts by increasing the Naira amount shown on the receipts and altering the dates and other information on old personal receipts to make them appear current and business-related. 

If this trend continues,It might afeect the cash flow of the Company of the Company.

An effective program for combating employee expense reimbursement fraud should include, among others, the following policies: 

• Accept only original supporting documents. 
• Require written explanation and replacements for lost original receipts. 
• Closely examine excessive incidents of “lost receipts” and refuse to reimburse the expenses.
• Require timely submission of fully supported employee expense reports. 
• Have the employee's business unit supervisor or manager conduct a prepayment review of the employee's expense reports and conduct review of original documentation submitted periodically. 
• Require an additional review of “corrected” employee expense reports. 
• Conduct a monthly internal audit of employee expense reports and related company credit card use.