Oversight Launches T&E Fraud Identification Tool

Oversight Systems has updated its Insights On Demand software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions to provide managers with quicker ways to identify expense report fraud.

In an announcement on Tuesday (Jan. 9), the company said the upgrades will provide one-click visibility into employees who are repeat offenders of booking non-compliant travel and making non-compliant purchases. Oversight cited data from JPMorgan, which estimated U.S. businesses lose $1 billion every year due to employee expense fraud.

Oversight’s own analysis found 10 percent of corporate travelers commit high-risk spending, which includes fraudulent and out-of-policy spending.

“Through features like Repeat Offenders and Excessive Attendee insight, we are making financial auditing and risk management processes more efficient — as much as 80 percent faster than traditional methods,” Oversight Systems CEO Patrick Taylor said in a statement. “By leveraging Oversight’s advanced analytics and continuous improvements in artificial intelligence technologies, our customers address the highest-risk travelers and foster a culture of employee compliance that minimizes wasteful T&E spend.”

Its Repeat Offenders feature automatically flags employees who have made multiple non-compliant expenses or attempted fraud on expense reports and p-cards. The Excessive Attendee feature analyzes internal fraud and misuse of company money, including collusion among multiple employees to bypass T&E (travel and expense) policy.

The solutions help companies remain compliant with regulations like the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Oversight added.

The B2B FinTech market has highlighted expense fraud several times in recent years, warning that the problem is not always due to malicious employee activity.

Research released last November by webexpenses found that employees often feel justified in exaggerating claims on their expense reports.

“The results bring to light the changing patterns of expense fraud, the shift to more subtle methods to efficiently enable claims to fall through the cracks and raise no red flags,” reflected webexpenses CEO Adam Reynolds in a statement. “The most prominent area being exaggerated [is] mileage claims; this could be down to employees feeling it’s completely innocent just rounding up mileage, and, with a manual process, it’s a lot harder to identify.”