Reply #10: Funny you shouild mention expense accounts...

[mcscajun]

...this was in the NYTimes just the other day:

Tools Can Catch Expense-Account Padders

Scrooge would be proud: more companies are adopting sophisticated new technology to help track and crack down on employee expense accounts.

(snip)

The software — now used by major companies like Boeing, Campbell Soup, Estée Lauder, J. C. Penney, Ocean Spray and Texas Instruments — is so sophisticated that online digital detectives can spot even the tiniest gap between actual and allowable expenses.

(snip)

But the software is also aimed at catching more devious employees. "There are egregious examples of abuse," said Rajeev Singh, Concur's president and chief operating officer. "The employee who buys a big flat-screen TV, supposedly to hold conferences in his home. Or a manager who tries to lay off the costs of his daughter's wedding by inviting business clients to the marriage. We've seen all that — and more."

(snip)

Another Amex survey, which polled 500 business travelers both here and in Europe last year, showed that nearly 40 percent of business travelers thought expense report abuse was common; 53 percent of American respondents said that the most-abused category was restaurants.

"This window of opportunity to cement ties with clients is often where the most abuse occurs — embellishing, hiding or falsifying reimbursable expenditures," the survey noted. Other areas in which travelers notoriously fudge the numbers are tips, taxis and phone costs. The oldest dodge is to put down fictitious expenses that are just under the radar — the benchmark amount beyond which backup receipts are needed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/27/technology/27expense.html?_r=1&oref=slogin