Survey finds lost receipts to be major cause of unclaimed expenses

Almost 50 percent of employees who use their own money to pay for business expenses fail to claim the full amount back, a survey has found.

Lost receipts and not wanting the hassle of making a claim were found to be the main reason for workers not claiming back the full amount they were owed by their company.

The study by finance firm, Capital One, found that 47 percent of the 2,000 workers they quizzed had used personal money to pay for business expenses, with an average of £367 being spent each month.

And 45 percent of those said they would not claim back all the money owed because they had either lost the receipt or did not feel it was worth going through the process of making a claim. A total of 42 percent said it was down to them losing receipts.

It is a problem the Webexpenses app tackles by allowing users to take a photograph of the receipt with the image being automatically uploaded to their account.

A spokesman for Capital One said: “Claiming back expenses can be a hassle as it’s easy to lose receipts and the process can often be quite lengthy, but failing to do so can be a very costly oversight."

They estimated that each employee would lose around £104 each year in unclaimed expenses with London workers being the hardest hit with an average loss of £168.

The research also found that nine percent of those surveyed said that they had expense claims queried and rejected by their employer. The older workers were also found to be more

Older workers were found to be the most conscientious when it came to claiming their expenses with 53 percent of those aged 55 and over claiming for everything but only 37 percent for those aged 18 to 34.