T&E benchmarks finance teams actually cite
The published numbers on expense report cost, error rates, policy leakage and reimbursement fraud, with the source next to every figure.
$58
to process one expense report
GBTA
19%
of reports contain errors or out-of-policy items
GBTA
6-10%
of T&E spend falls outside policy
Mid-market analysis
$40,000
median loss per expense reimbursement scheme
ACFE
What a single report costs
Every report costs money to process. The ones with errors cost almost as much again to fix, plus a quarter hour of someone's afternoon.
The correction figure is the one to watch. A team processing 1,640 reports a month at a 19% error rate corrects about 312 of them, which is roughly $16,224 and 93.6 staff hours every month before anyone has looked at whether the spend itself was in policy.
Process one expense report
$58
Investigate and correct one with errors
$52
+ 18 minutes of staff time
Source: Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) Foundation expense management studies
Error rate
Source: GBTA benchmark studies
Policy leakage
Spend that was paid or reimbursed even though written policy says it should not have been.
Source: analysis of mid-market corporate T&E spend
80%+
of front-line managers spend less than 30 seconds reviewing a report, often approving summary totals without opening the receipts.
Source: industry operational surveys
Fraud that runs for over a year
Expense reimbursement schemes are small per transaction and slow to surface, which is exactly why sampling misses them.
- 14%
- of asset misappropriation cases are expense reimbursement schemes
- $40,000
- median loss per organization
- 14 months
- median duration before detection
Source: ACFE Report to the Nations on Occupational Fraud
Source: ACFE Report to the Nations
Apply the benchmarks to your own volume
Move the sliders to see what the published rates imply for a company of your size.
Uses the GBTA cost and error figures and the 6 to 10% out-of-policy range. For a deeper model with AP hours recovered, use the leakage calculator.
- Spend outside policy per year
- $292,200 to $487,000
- Reports needing correction per month
- 312
- Correction cost per year
- $194,438
- 1,122 staff hours
- Processing cost per year
- $1,141,440
Sources and method
We only publish figures from named, published research and re-verify them each year when ACFE releases a new Report to the Nations and the IRS updates per diem rates. If you cite a number, cite the original source listed here.
| Source | Figures used |
|---|---|
| Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) Foundation | Report processing cost ($58), correction cost and time ($52, 18 minutes), report error rate (19%) |
| Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), Report to the Nations | Expense reimbursement schemes as 14% of asset misappropriation cases, $40,000 median loss, 14 months median duration |
| Mid-market corporate T&E spend analysis | 6% to 10% of total T&E spend outside official policy |
| Industry operational surveys | Over 80% of front-line managers spend less than 30 seconds reviewing a report |
| Internal Revenue Service: IRC § 62, IRC § 274, Treas. Reg. § 1.62-2 | Accountable plan consequences: reimbursements reclassified as W-2 wages |
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