Uber Eats launches platform so you can charge your company for your work lunch order

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• Uber Eats for Business was announced in Australia on Tuesday. It has been in operation in the USA and Canada since November 2018.

• Businesses will receive automated feedback on how much employees are spending.

• Uber Eats says there are no plans to introduce options to place restrictions around unhealthy food on the platform.

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Uber Eats is coming to your work lunch break, with the food delivery service announcing the launch of Uber Eats for Business on Tuesday.

Uber is aiming to make the system easy to integrate into company budgets, with bills charged directly to company accounts and allowing individual teams to have budgets to limit how much they can order.

The same product was launched in the USA and Canada in November last year, but Australia is the first international launch.

Head of Uber for Business, Australia and New Zealand, Georgia Foster told Business Insider Australia the product had been in the works since 2016 and in testing since last year.

“We’ve been testing this product for the last year in Australia to understand whether there were similarities [to the USA],” she said.

She said businesses that already use the ride-sharing platform Uber for Business could now simply enable the product in the dashboard.

Companies using Uber Eats will get a centralised bill so they know exactly what was ordered and by which team. They can also set a daily cap on spending, with any excess charged to employees.

The technology allows for a 'late night' policy, with geofencing, meaning any who stay late in the office can order in.

But Foster told Business Insider Australia there was nothing within the platform that would allow a business to block employees ordering greasy burgers and that they were not looking at adding the functionality.

“The control doesn’t apply as far as how people eat, that’s not been addressed as a long term plan,” she said. “We do encourage organisations to advise how they want employs to ride or eat.”

DLA Piper is one company that trialled the pre-launch version of Uber Eats for Business. The company's financial controller Garry Welsman said in a statement the platform had “made it much easier for our employees to order meals at a time when they need to be in the office late”.

“Using the Uber Eats for Business account also takes the hassle out of keeping receipts and submitting claims, as the expenses are managed centrally and automatically," he said.

Foster said the need for the product had been clearly evident, with SAP Concur, an expense management company, finding claims for Uber Eats had grown 194 per cent on its platform in the last year alone.

A great reason to stay back in the office late and smash a greasy burger.