According to new research from Conferma, 36 percent of employees in the UK use their own money to pay for work-related expenses at least once per month. The average individual expense claim is £72.20.
The research from Conferma, the fintech company specialising in virtual payment technology, shows that 1-in-3 employees have experienced cashflow issues due to slow expense reimbursement and 38 percent have been caused stress due to the time it takes to get their expenses repaid.
1009 UK adults currently in employment were surveyed for this research and according to the findings it is estimated that employees in the UK are effectively lending their employers £321 million a month through expenses, leading to a feeling they are at times acting as a bank to their own employer.
41 percent of employees admitted they would stop spending money on a business expense if they had to wait a significant amount of time to be repaid. Almost one quarter (19 percent) said they would stop undertaking business travel and a further 43 percent were prepared to halt meeting current or prospective customers and undertaking marketing activities altogether.