I Falsified an expenses claim, so now what

[feelprettyawful]

sorry long explanation, but decision is whether to come clean or not...

Normal practice at my work is we pay in advance out of pocket for travel expenses & claim back later. This worked fine until sudden trip cancellations due to covid.

I tried to get refunds for everything covid-cancelled but then to keep the repayment claim applications simple, on one item I claimed full price rather than the 3 different partial refund claims I could have done for same value. Difference from auditors' viewpoint is about £40 out of Account A that I was actually refunded for and should have claimed out of Account B. I don't know if I still have all the original tickets etc. but I may have images of them. And emails showing partial refunds, etc.

Auditor is asking for proof I tried to get refunds on everything. I either come clean about the falsification using my partial/failed real claims to refund.. or ... try to keep up the lies. I am half tempted to come clean & if I lose my job and career that might have its own merits, anyway, although it would upset a lot of people and put me in poverty, I suppose.

It matters to me that I have worked about 300 hours unpaid this year. All the time I spend trying talking to auditor is also unpaid hours. I understand that The auditor won't give a shit about my unpaid hours and neither do I suppose will most MNers. I am net out of pocket still, technically, just £4 or so.

Irk. How fucked am I?

Don't lie. They'll find out, that is literally what the auditor is for.

I would just come clean tomorrow. apologise, say you were rushing and provide all the evidence showing you’re owed £4

If you are out of pocket then why would they look to fire you. In my experience auditors are complete jobsworths. If they saw you were actually out by £4 in their favour what’s the issue and as PP say. It complex, scrappy bits of papers, refunds flying around, last minute cancelled trips.

I was once asked why I hadn’t booked a cancellable ticket when we were encouraged locally to book non refundable ones because of the cost savings overall.

As I said before complete jobs worths

Lie, act thick it’s minor amounts.

Good luck!

Lie/ act confused. Go around in circles with the explanations, send them the wrong receipts or duplicate receipts. Repeat back to them what they are saying but get bits wrong then throw up your hands and exclaim in a very stressed voice Oh I don't get it! If necessary, burst into tears and rant about why does everything with covid have to be so confusing.

They'll send you for a coffee and assume it was an innocent cock up.

I felt like this when I finally left a FTSE company after years of unpaid hours. They were nickel and diming me over a couple of hours annual leave. So, I didn’t bust a gut doing a robust handover, they asked if they could call occasionally if they got stuck on a customer issue so I gave them my new mobile number and gave them the wrong one...

Definitely deal with it before Christmas and deal with it by acting thick. Human error. So many expenses, so many refunds, so confusing, no idea how you did it, terribly sorry, can it be sorted, great thanks bye.

So the ethical issue is that expenses have been claimed from client A that should have been client B. Although you personally haven't made money out of it, Client A has paid more than they should have and client B has paid less?

I can see why that's a bit of an issue. And one which "acting thick" might not be beneficial if charging clients correctly is a part of your role. I've managed consultants before and I would be distinctly unimpressed if one of them tried to pretend they didn't realise charging our clients correctly was a core competence (and being unable to understand the importance or process would have called into question their competence for their role in general).

Your employer won't want a reputation for being careless with its accounts BUT it's only 40 quid. I doubt the auditors will be that bothered unless you're a very low turn over firm (and in that case - why do you have auditors?). I would go more with something along the lines of finding the evidence (which, again, I would expect a consultant to be able to do) and say that looking at it now you realise that you must have made a mistake in the rush to get things in in time but here it all is.

You haven't made money so at worst you're going to come across as a bit careless or lazy. With the rush to get things in and the general chaos of the first few months of the pandemic I doubt you'll be the only mistake they find.

It is not a material amount, you can show you weren't stealing. Its an admin error, lessons to be learned etc but I doubt they would sack you over it.

Those suggesting you 'act thick', haven't considered what type of work you might do. If you're a professional person then they're going to know that you're not thick, so it's not going to wash at all.

The auditor knows something is amiss, they're not going to let it go unfortunately, and the more that you lie or twist things, the more they'll keep looking. Be honest and explain your reasoning.

Play thick...

Ex-auditor here. What level of materiality are this audit firm working to!! There are always unders and overs - fraud is often detected by patterns rather than one-offs.

You are (slightly) out of pocket which actually you shouldnt be. These are genuine work travel expenses. So I totally agree with other pps - act a bit thick - so you mixed up the accounts. But you will need to show clearly that you are out of pocket.

I agree with others, say you have looked at it all and realise you missed off one of the refunds (and maybe misallocated something to the wrong client ) as they came in after you did your March claim? If that is true.

Give then a nice spreadsheet of the costs and then refunds for each (or why no refund) so they think it's all now in hand)

If you're out of pocket I'd show them all your receipts to prove this and admit you made a mistake. It's not a lot of money so sure it can be sorted.

My advice is not EVER to mention the "unpaid hours".
if you do then it may be suspected that you decided to "arrange" your own payment by falsifying expenses and it will get the investigation off on the wrong foot.

@spongedog

Ex-auditor here. What level of materiality are this audit firm working to!! There are always unders and overs - fraud is often detected by patterns rather than one-offs.

You are (slightly) out of pocket which actually you shouldnt be. These are genuine work travel expenses. So I totally agree with other pps - act a bit thick - so you mixed up the accounts. But you will need to show clearly that you are out of pocket.

I thought the same thing about materiality - not sure you ever stop being an auditor! 😂

Seriously OP, I wouldn't get too fussed about this at all either as an auditor or a manager. Presumably someone approved if? It sounds like some expenses may need to be reallocated but that's such a minor thing and it's such a small amount that I doubt anyone will really care. Other than a jobsworth auditor obviously.

I'd just send them everything and let them work it out. They'll either come back and say you are short £4, not come back at all or come back and say you've claimed in the wrong bit.

Answer to the latter is that there were so many you got a bit confused and didn't think it was that important.

You've not been dishonest or kept money, just made an error.

I'm so confused. Why wouldn't you just be upfront if you haven't actually lied to take more money than you're entitled to? Of course you shouldn't have done what you did in the first place, but just come clean. Be honest, and take whatever consequences come. I can't imagine you'll lose your job over something small, but you will more than likely get a warning and your employers will probably pay more attention to anything you put forward in future.

Come clean, you claimed in the least complicated way for a bet financial result that is the same. They will realise you weren’t trying to defraud the company but might make you amend the claims

I'm an auditor. I would say it depends on the culture of your company. Most places i worked wouldn't be bothered by this amount as immaterial and it doesnt sound like a fraud for personal gain but others would. Are your clients big companies that wouldn't notice this or are they general public. Also depends on your role: should you have done it properly as you are professional or a manager and influence on other staff? Are you in a regulated industry? Was it a genuine mistake?
You could act thick but it could reflect badly on you if you're expected to be "intelligent". Can you talk to your line manager?
Is the auditor a junior member of the team? Often junior staff get excited by this stuff and their manager dismisses it.

Act thick to get out of it ( hopefully ) BUT never used unpaid hours work as justification to yourself to this sort of thing. It just doesn’t work like that. Tackle the issue of why you are doing unpaid hours .

If you come clean, say you submitted the expense in a simplified way.

I'm a litigation lawyer and your problem is that you have criminalised yourself in your own mind ("falsification") because you know your resentment of the extra hours influenced your lack of care. Female clients are particularly prone to this. Use this mumsnet practice session to recast the narrative. No-one else knows about your resentment of the extra hours.

listen to those on the thread who say they are auditors/have been auditors and if their advice is consistent think like them not like someone paralysed with fear.

my first suggestion would "Hi I've checked this and I see I'm actually out of pocket and also I've carelessly reclaimed too little from account B which means £x needs to be reallocated from account B to account A or account A will be short. Here is my additional claim for £4."
but I would defer to what those on this thread with experience say.

Definitely come clean but don’t portray you did it for financial gain (in fact, point out you’re down). Say you took a simplified approach for time saving reasons giving the unusual circumstances and unprecedented amount of cancellations. Do you have bank statements showing the original purchases?