About half of Indian firms lack system to detect travel, expense frauds: Survey

Around 48 per cent of companies in India lack a system to detect travel and expense management frauds as they do it manually while 55 per cent of the surveyed firms do not have means to retrieve past expense data, according to business expense management firm Happay report released Monday.

"Expense fraud is one of the most overlooked types of fraud and entails a staggering cost for companies. Still, 48 per cent of companies do not have a system to detect frauds as travel and expense expenses are mapped manually," the survey report said.

The survey was conducted in India between July and September 2018 and found that nearly 55 per cent of the companies stated their inability to retrieve past expense data as a key bottleneck in auditing and managing T&E expenses.

Over 200 companies covered in the survey included 26 per cent with revenue of over Rs 5,000 crore, 17 per cent in the range of Rs 2,500-5,000, 25 per cent in range of Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,500, 31 per cent in range of Rs 250-500 crore and 1 per cent below Rs 250 crore revenue.

"What is more surprising is that 33 per cent of the companies do not have GST compliant T&E solution and are unable to use any digital means to perform the calculations. Even though 67 per cent of the companies have some GST compliant software, they still need the employees to submit tour bills and enter vouchers manually to claim input credit," the report said.

Even though 67 per cent of the companies have some GST compliant software, they still need the employees to submit tour bills and enter vouchers manually to claim input credit, the survey found.

Around 82 per cent of companies covered in the survey either partially or entirely lacking in making the whole T&E process automated despite it being the second-largest operational expense after payroll.

"About 50 per cent of the CFOs (chief financial officers) have understood this urgent need and taken digitisation upon themselves, to switch to an automated expense management system in the next six months," the report said.

In the survey, 50 per cent CFOs stated that the percentage of fraud and misappropriation in their companies is lower than 14.5 per cent, 48 per cent were unaware of this number and 2 per cent firms surveyed said that is above 14.5 per cent in their organisation.