Oversight, which provides spend-management and risk-mitigation technology, analyzed how spend and risk in the finance industry have been affected. The report is based on Oversight's proprietary spend data and reveals how new behaviors and patterns introduced by changed work arrangements have played a significant role in the rise of abuse. Among the significant findings:

Risk has increased nearly threefold. A year-over-year comparison of 2019 to 2020 shows that despite a 55% decrease in travel and expense spend, the spend violation rate increased 292%.
Risky out-of-pocket expenses have soared. Out-of-pocket expenses began to escalate in March 2020, increasing as high as 120% of pre-pandemic levels. This spike likely is attributable to an influx of new corporate spenders who paid out-of-pocket for office set-ups and needed to be reimbursed. Because organizations historically have had limited visibility into out-of-pocket transaction data, this type of spend is inherently riskier than company card spend.
Spend is shifting to risky categories. Spend in two high-risk categories, miscellaneous (non-classified) stores and mail/phone orders, accounted for a greater portion of overall spend in 2020 as airfare purchases were down by a factor of 12 from pre-pandemic levels.

The bulk of work-from-home purchases fell into these two high-risk categories, which include merchants that sell various wares, including electronics and computer software. Unfortunately, significant quantities of non-compliant purchases were made from these merchants as well.

Instant Insights /

Employee spending is down during pandemic, but fraud, waste and abuse are way up

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