A per diem service helps legal and compliance teams manage travel expenses for employees on the go. These services offer a range of benefits for companies and organizations that use them, including ease of reimbursement, transparency, and cost control. Using an expense management system like Fyle can also streamline the entire process, eliminating manual paperwork and making it easy to track and submit expenses.
Initiatives focused on limiting instances of abuse of per diem allowances typically involve a transactional conceptualization of the concept, suggesting that workers should be paid only for costs actually incurred. These approaches also suggest that large expenses should be avoided, and flat-rate sums supported by research on average local costs should be used. They are designed to limit the freedom to claim unnecessary expenses and to send a clear message that there are control measures in place.
However, a number of other issues associated with per diem allowances are not addressed by these recommendations. For example, many respondents indicated that reliance on per diems creates an incentive for employees to participate in activities only when they can receive compensation for it. This creates a competitive environment among colleagues and can lead to neglect of other activities. Furthermore, per diem payments can contribute to power imbalances in organizational structures and encourage unproductive competition.
Moreover, some of the recommended strategies for reducing per diem abuse focus on limiting the freedom to spend above certain predetermined daily limits. This approach can reduce the burden on employees to keep records of expenses and submit detailed expense reports, but it can also limit the flexibility that employees have to spend within their budgets.
In addition, there is a need for further research into proposed solutions to these issues. The existing literature on these topics is scarce and often lacks a holistic approach, focusing only on specific aspects of the problem.
A more comprehensive approach is needed to address the challenges posed by per diem allowances, such as establishing transparent policies, monitoring expenses through automated systems, and introducing non-financial incentives for optimal activity and project delivery. This type of approach can help to avoid the negative effects attributed to the abuse of per diems, while at the same time allowing the benefits to be maximized.
Samson Freundlich is the founder and CEO of per diem services, a New York-based firm that provides daily per diem and court appearance services to lawyers in the state, federal and appellate courts of New York. He has extensive experience in complex litigation matters including false arrest cases, criminal defense, sports and entertainment law, and commercial arbitrations. He is a graduate of Touro Law Center and is admitted to practice in the state of New York, United States District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of New York, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, and the United States Supreme Court. He is a member of the New York State Bar Association, the American Bar Association, and the Federal Bar Council.