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Bruce Andrew has used his expense account to woo clients on the golf course. He's used it to pick up the cheque at restaurants plenty of times, not to mention pay for countless other items. Whatever he puts on the company dime, however, is always guided by one very simple principle.

“You have to use your common sense,” says Mr. Andrew, vice-president of marketing and business development at Direct Energy Canada.

As someone who now vets expense reports of salespeople, however, Mr. Andrew knows that it's often not a perfect guide.

“I have found in the past that ‘use your common sense' may not work with everybody, because what some people consider common sense you may not. Sometimes you have to be a little more explicit,” he says.

Following expense-account scandals at eHealth Ontario and, most recently, at the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp., the provincial government last week told Ontario's largest agencies to follow the same rules for wining and dining clients as the province's public service in an attempt to clamp down on lavish spending. Yet while spending shenanigans still clearly exist in agencies that operate at arm's length from the government, experts say most private-sector companies have strict policies governing expense accounts, adding that anyone with access to one probably treats it with caution these days.

“Most companies are putting a keener eye to expense control,” says Peter Brown, managing partner at Deloitte's private company services in Canada. “People are thinking twice about what they're putting on their expense report.”

Most companies, Mr. Brown adds, have a policy that makes clear what sort of items can be legitimately claimed as expenses.

Many such policies set price limits for how much can be spent in any particular area, whether it's breakfast while on the road, parking costs or how many alcoholic beverages may be charged with a meal.

“It just makes it easier for employees to know what's fair and appropriate,” he says.

Increased scrutiny of expense accounts is a natural consequence of more difficult economic times, with most companies looking to tighten their belts in all areas, Mr. Brown adds.

At the same time, however, expense accounts serve a valuable function.

“It's absolutely necessary. If you've got people who travel and have to entertain, they absolutely have to have it. And if you don't have it, you're unlikely to attract people to your business,” Mr. Andrew says.

Indeed, in many jobs, particularly in sales, having an expense account is vital, says Harvey Copeman, president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Professional Sales Association. But with so much attention being paid to expense accounts these days, people who are handing in claims for approval may be more anxious than ever.

“Anybody who submits an expense account today is probably on heightened alert and probably scrambling to check out what their company policies are,” he says.

This is especially true now, adds Mr. Copeman, given the furor that has erupted over revelations that employees at eHealth Ontario and Ontario Lottery and Gaming used their expense accounts to charge limousine rides, packs of gum, pen refills, grocery bags, and a $3,713 business dinner that included 15 bottles of wine.

The public outrage over such scandals quickly spreads to the corporate world, says Len Brooks, a professor of business ethics and accounting at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management.

“Corporations are continually scanning the culture, the news, particularly to see what's happening as a matter of risk management,” he says. “If they identify that some company or organizations have trouble and the government and the population are up in arms about what appear to be excessive charges that got reimbursed, then they know there is a chance their executives will ask about this or be asked about the same kind of thing in their organization. And also, it raises the penalty, reputationally, for being caught out.”

Still, companies that go too far in cutting expense accounts run a risk of losing business, says Robin Jay, author of The Art of the Business Lunch .

“It's a huge mistake for companies to cut them,” she says. “They're setting themselves up for their competition to move in and take over their business.”

Of course, even defenders such as Ms. Jay stress the importance of ensuring that expense accounts are used for business, not personal, items.

The increased scrutiny of who's charging what to the company can also be a source of frustration for many employees.

“If I'm at a gas station buying gas and then I buy a 99-cent Cadbury Thins chocolate bar and I forget to separate that [from my expense report] I've been called on it,” says Sarah Jay, a Toronto-based wardrobe stylist. “I try to be incredibly thorough on my end, but obviously stuff does happen.”

She now finds herself combing over her expense reports more thoroughly than ever.

“If you want to work, you have to be good with money and you have to be accountable and you have to be thorough,” she says.

There may once have been a time when companies would woo clients with three-hour, boozy lunches, and expense-account charges were made, and signed off on, carelessly. But, for the most part, that attitude is a thing of the past, Mr. Andrew says.

“There are very few cowboys left who are out there whooping it up on an expense account,” he says. “Those days are gone.”

Expense account hall of shame

News that staff charged Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. nearly $500 for a nanny and $7 for a pen refill, among other items, may strike some as egregious examples of expense abuses. But they pale in comparison to some of the five worst offenders in recent memory, compiled by HRWorld.com:

Pilar O'Leary, former head of the non-profit Smithsonian Latino Center in Washington, D.C., not only refused to walk or even take a cab from one Smithsonian building to another, she hired a limo to drive her across the National Mall.

In 2002, six Barclays Capital investment bankers headed out for lunch at a swank London restaurant and racked up a $62,000 (U.S.) tab on wine alone that they reportedly tried to pass off as a business expense.

Higher education equals higher expenses apparently, considering that one Stanford University ex-president expensed a set of $7,000 bed sheets, while Benjamin Ladner, former president of American University, expensed garbage bags for his residence, despite earning an annual salary of $633,000.

Ed Norris may have helped get Baltimore's murder rate down after being hired as the city's police commissioner in 2000, but according to a press release later issued by the U.S. Department of Justice, “[a]mong other things, Norris used the supplemental account to finance his affairs with numerous different women and to pay for luxury hotels, expensive meals, clothing and gifts from Victoria's Secret, Coach and other stores.”

Last year, feeling the pinch from the credit crisis, Germany's largest financial institution, Deutsche Bank AG, reportedly issued a memo to employees telling them to discontinue the practice of expensing call girls and adult-television channels. While it is believed that the bank never actually condoned such behaviour, it looks like it wasn't very thorough in examining expense reports.

Dave McGinn