If you want to understand how your people really work, look at their expenses. Not just the total sums, but the patterns. The coffee runs that punctuate client catch-ups. Late-night taxis after critical project deadlines. Branded hotel stays that make week-long travel manageable.
Expense data is a surprisingly honest reflection of modern work, and it tells a story about culture, wellbeing, and where policies need to catch up.
Our latest analysis of more than 371,000 claims across 460 UK organisations highlights just how personal workplace spending has become. Small, frequent purchases dominate everyday essentials: Costa leads hospitality claims at £31,600, followed by Tesco (£27,500), McDonald’s (£13,600), Pret (£13,400), and Greggs (£6,600). On the surface, these are trivial amounts.
In reality, they reflect how collaboration happens, whether that’s in cafés, between trains, or on the move. They also reveal the soft costs of productivity: the informal interactions and micro-moments that keep teams connected and projects moving.
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Everyday essentials say more than you think
When coffee chains and supermarkets top the ledger, it’s a signal that work is increasingly decentralised. Teams meet where it’s convenient, not just in offices, and policies need to recognise that these ‘small’ expenses are often where relationships are built.
Rather than policing every latte, HR, ops and finance teams should use this data to guide clearer rules: when a quick coffee with a partner is acceptable, when per-diems apply, and how to keep receipts without slowing people down. The goal isn’t to strip out humanity, instead, it is to bring consistency into the culture you already have.
Late-night logistics and the boundary problem
The data also shows 24% of late-night taxi-hails are linked to tech and engineering firms, at a cost of £53,000 across 4,400 rides. That pattern reflects flexible work rhythms and the reality of time-critical delivery, but it also raises questions around wellbeing, safety, and policy clarity.
If late finishes are routine for certain teams, do your expense rules support safer travel after hours? Are managers empowered to approve it quickly? Do employees know what’s covered without needing a back-and-forth? Expense behaviour is a proxy for people’s lived experiences if the system makes late-night logistics a hassle, the cost is measured in more than money.
Hotel habits and the comfort-control trade-off
Accommodation spend is another revealing lens. Premier Inn (£246,000), Marriott (£159,000), and Travelodge (£36,000) stand out in the data, an indicator that many organisations favour predictable, branded options. From a duty of care and budgeting perspective, this is sensible, but it can also mask inconsistent categorisation and missed savings if bookings happen ad hoc.
Employees need clarity on preferred suppliers, price ceilings, and what ‘reasonable comfort’ means in practice. Clear guidance reduces the friction and second-guessing that lead to repeated clarifications, resubmissions, and delays.
The WFH blind spot and the cost shifted to employees
With around one quarter of the UK workforce engaged in hybrid working environments, some expenses have shifted from the office to the home yet our data reveals only 7% of companies reimburse utilities, totalling £7,900. That disparity erodes trust. If employees are expected to be productive from home, then policies should acknowledge real costs, such as utilities or ergonomic setups.
Without creating a culture of entitlement, organisations should align expense policy with how work genuinely happens. When there’s a fair baseline of what’s covered, at what level, and how to claim, teams see cleaner submissions and employees see that their organisations understand their reality.
How smarter systems help people, not just processes
Technology is catching up with how people work and for expense management, automation can enforce clarity at the source. Prompting for client names, trip details, or itemised receipts helps ensure employees don’t get tripped up by vague notes like “as discussed”.
It can flag common pitfalls in real-time, such as duplicates, unusual merchant patterns, or late submissions, before they become a problem. And it can speed the journey from submission to reimbursement with configurable approvals and audit-ready records, reducing the quiet stress that comes from waiting to be paid back.
Crucially, smarter systems also support broader goals employees care about. Carbon tracking helps organisations measure the environmental impact of travel, not to penalise people, but to make better and more environmentally conscious travel choices, such as switching from taxis to trains where feasible, planning routes more efficiently, or balancing virtual and in-person meetings. Faster, clearer reimbursements improve trust, because nothing says “we value your time” like not asking people to chase their money.
From policy to experience
Employees don’t experience expense management. They experience a series of small interactions: snapping a receipt, adding a name, waiting for approval. When those interactions are smooth, the message is clear – the organisation respects their time and trusts them to do the right thing. When they are not, culture pays the price.
For HR, operations and finance teams, this is more than an operational detail. Every claim is a data point that reveals behaviour, priorities, and potential risk. Patterns like late-night travel or frequent coffee runs are signals. Signals that policies may need updating, that wellbeing initiatives could be strengthened, or that ESG goals are not being met. The question isn’t whether to process claims, rather it’s how to use the insight behind to shape smarter decisions.
Expense systems should go beyond processing and help teams lead. By enforcing clarity at the source, aligning policies with real-world behaviour, and using automation to remove avoidable delays, finance leaders can turn everyday spend into a strategic advantage. Expenses aren’t just numbers, they’re the story about how your organisation really works. Read that story carefully, and you’ll find the insights you need to protect funds, strengthen compliance, and build a more trusted, resilient organisation.
James Rowell is Founder of Capture Expense, a leading expense management SaaS platform serving SMEs and mid-market businesses across the UK and Ireland. He is experienced in scaling B2B software through product innovation, automation, and AI-driven decision-making and specialises in solving complex business challenges using first-principles thinking and intelligent software.
- James Rowell
