AI generated expense fraud: vigilance is key to resilience

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ultimate multitasker in modern business, streamlining tasks by automating bookings, crunching data, and powering new efficiencies across travel and expense management. Yet, with every innovation comes the opportunity for malicious intent. The same technology that streamlines corporate processes can now be exploited to fabricate realistic, AI-generated receipts, challenging long-held assumptions about how businesses verify employee expenses.

An overwhelming majority of business travellers —nearly nine in ten— feel comfortable using AI for work-related automation, according to findings in the SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey. Further, accessible tools have made it alarmingly easy for users to produce convincing receipts and invoices within seconds, complete with logos, dates, and itemised charges that look perfectly legitimate making expense fraud that is faster, harder to detect, and significantly more sophisticated than in the past.

Most organisations still struggle with manual or outdated travel and expense (T&E) systems that are ill-equipped for such challenges. Historically, expense errors have been chalked up to innocent mistakes, such as duplicate transactions, out-of-policy submissions, or missing itemisation. However, as AI-generated receipts proliferate, those simple errors now provide cover for more deliberate falsification. Traditional post-submission reviews rarely catch these inauthentic documents, leaving finance teams exposed.

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Organisations can mitigate risk by viewing prevention as a structural discipline rather than a reactive process. Strong policies that embed pre-spend controls, which would require approval for significant purchases before they are made, can serve as an early filter. Clear guidelines around disciplinary action can also deter potential offenders.

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Modern expense systems also have a critical role to play. Integrating corporate cards, e-receipts, and booking tools creates a closed-loop environment where transactions can be automatically validated against external data sources. It becomes far harder for false claims to slip through when each spend entry is cross-checked in real time. These systems also produce richer data sets that can help identify spending trends, highlight policy blind spots, and strengthen internal controls over time.

AI itself is part of the solution as intelligent audit technologies can now analyse receipts by comparing image characteristics, verifying addresses, checking tax consistency, and matching metadata against known data patterns. Human auditors will be freed to focus on high-value anomalies and strategic oversight as machine learning models continue to mature and surpass traditional teams in accuracy and speed.

Early adopters of AI-assisted expense verification are already reporting measurable benefits, with fewer fraudulent claims, greater policy compliance, and leaner audit workloads. [...] The message is clear for business leaders: AI is rewriting the rules of fraud, and governance must adapt. Leaders who strengthen controls, raise awareness, and invest in intelligent verification will protect their businesses and build lasting trust.

Read the original article on Forbes from Jonathan Beeby, Managing Director, SAP Concur Australia and New Zealand