We've noted recently that more companies seemed bent on instilling better travel and entertainment cost controls. Let's face it: The expense account is among the easiest to fudge. At some companies, T&E "fraud," for lack of better word, is a great pastime, but it's going to get harder to fudge expenses. Financial Week reports that more companies are slashing T&E budgets. A Towers Perrin survey has found that 75 percent of its clients say they're likely to scale back in 2009. You can bet that the funds that are spent will get a lot more scrutiny, so an employee would be crazy to try any shenanigans now. Companies that invested in automated solutions will likely find it easier to grapple with the new austerity. For those lacking such solutions, it's unclear how efficient a manual crackdown would be--you might end up asking for a lot more paper.

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