Expense policies offer granular control over expense submissions. You can set up rules that specify what details are required on expenses being submitted. If those details are missing, you can either block submission or automatically display a warning to both the submitter and to reviewers that a policy’s rules haven’t been met. These rules can apply company-wide or to specific teams or users.
The following describes the components of a policy.
Applies to
You can specify any individual team or user, or a combination of teams or users, per policy. If you don't specify any teams or users, the policy will apply company-wide, meaning to all users.
If necessary, you can set up a policy for a team and a separate policy for a user in that team. The rules for a user take precedence over the rules for a team, and the rules for a team take precedence over rules that apply company-wide. Rules are applied in the following hierarchy:
If an individual user is named in a policy, that policy's rules will apply to that user.
If an individual team is named in a policy, that policy's rules will apply to all the users in that team, except for users named in a separate policy.
A company-wide policy will apply to all users and teams not named in their own policies.
You can select an individual user or team only once. That is, two policies cannot apply to the same user or team (or company-wide) at the same time. For more information, see Multiple policies below.
Policy rules
Fields that can have rules
You can currently enforce expense policy rules on the following fields:
Notes | All line items must contain a note. |
Attachments | An expense must have a receipt or invoice. |
Tracking groups | For more details, see Tracking Groups, below. |
Rule options
You can control the expense submission workflow by determining whether a rule blocks submission or just shows a warning.
For Notes and Attachments, the following options are available:
Off | The rule will have no effect. Rules are turned off by default. |
Block if rule not met
| If the rule isn’t met, the user (also called the ‘submitter’) is blocked from submitting their expense. |
Warn submitter and reviewer | The submitter is warned that their expense doesn’t meet the rule, but they can submit the expense anyway. Reviewers also see the warning when they review the expense. |
Warn reviewer only | The user can submit the expense without any warning. Only the reviewer sees the warning that a rule isn’t met. |
Tracking Groups
You can specify tracking groups (see Tracking for expenses) that should be included on expenses. By setting the level of enforcement, the tracking group can be mandatory, optional or hidden. You can also set a default option and, if needed, limit the selection to a list permitted options.
ℹ️ Tracking groups not included in a policy are still available to users. To hide a tracking group completely, add a role for it and set “Enforcement” to “Hidden”.
The following parameters can be set for tracking groups:
Tracking Group | The name of any of your existing tracking groups. |
Enforcement | Similar to Rule Options, above, this sets the level of enforcement:
|
Default Value | This will be selected by default when the expense is created. Note: Ensure that the value is also in the Permitted Options. |
Permitted Options | Click and select each of the options that should be included in the list on the expense form. Options not included in this list aren’t allowed. Leave the list empty to allow all options. |
Client – Rebillable
If you add a rule for the Client tracking group, then you can also set the enforcement level of Rebillable to one of the following default values:
Unselected - can be changed
Selected - can be changed
Always selected - can't be changed
Disabled (meaning the user won't be able to select it at all)
✨ The default Job Number field is a text field, similar to Note, so you can’t specify a list of permitted options. If you need to limit users to a set of options, create a new tracking group with these options (see Tracking for expenses) and set the default Job Number tracking group’s enforcement level to Hidden.
Disabled tracking groups
If you add a tracking group that has been disabled to a expense policy, it will be highlighted in red. Please remove any of these from the policy. Users won’t be able to select a value and, depending on the enforcement level, may be blocked from submitting an expense.
Setting up an expense policy
To set up an expense policy:
In the Expend web app, open the sidebar menu, click Settings, and select Expense Policies.
Click the Create Expense Policy button.
Under Policy name, enter the name of your policy. Description is optional.
Under Applies to, select the Teams and/or Users to which the policy will apply. To have the policy apply company-wide, leave these fields empty.
Under Policy rules, choose an option for each available rule using the respective dropdown fields (see Rule options, above).
Optional: To set up a rule for a tracking group, click Add tracking group rule and set the available parameters (see Tracking groups, above).
Click Create.
How policies are applied
When you set up an expense policy with rules that block submission, it won’t apply to expenses that have already been submitted. However, warnings about policy rules not being met will be shown to reviewers.
Editing a policy
To edit an existing expense policy, click the policy in the list and make the required changes. You can change the policy name, description, who it applies to, and rules. You can also make the policy active or inactive by clicking the switch next to Enabled.
⚠️ Please note: If you change a policy and then open an expense that has already been approved, you may see warnings that weren’t applicable at the time of approval. This is because the expense is re-evaluated against the policy whenever you open it.
Multiple policies
You can create any number of policies, but note the following:
Only one policy that applies to a specific user or team can be active at a time. Expend will prevent you from making a policy active if it will apply to the same team or user as another active policy.
Only one company-wide policy can be active at a time.
If already named on an active policy, a team or user won't be available when creating or editing other policies. If you need to make changes, you will need to deactivate an active policy first. For example, if you want to add a user to a policy, but that user is already named on a second, active policy, you need to disable the second policy first.
Expense policies in the mobile app
After creating or editing an expense policy, please allow up to five minutes for changes to become available in the mobile app. Users may also need to force the app to close and then reopen it before the updated policy will be available.