Company travel policy can be enforced through Expense Policy Rules, eliminating the need for an auditor to review expense reports for policy compliance. DATABASICS Expense can require an employee to correct an expense, delete an unauthorized expense, use only authorized vendors, explain an overage and send certain expenses to special approvers.
To open the Expense Policy Wizard:
- Click Expense Policy under Policy Setup in the Expense menu.
- Click on the Add button.
Step 1: Expense Policy Set up
Field | Description |
|---|---|
Name | Enter a name for the expense policy |
Rule Apply On | Select how the amounts will be totaled:
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Flag Lines | Indicate whether you want a message to appear on the lines that violate the policy |
Approval Option | Select if this policy will trigger any type of approval:
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Replace Approval Flow | Indicate whether you want the default approval flow to be replaced by the approval flow attached to this policy. If you select "No," any additional approval will be appended to the approval structure based on the Approval Sequence Table. |
Allow Release | Indicate whether you want this Expense Report to be released if it violates the policy.
|
User Message | Enter a message to be displayed to the user if they violate the policy. |
Amount Type | Enter an Amount Type for the policy:
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Currency | Select a currency for the policy to be applied in. This is only required for Amount Type: Absolute Amount for a specific Currency |
Operator | Use the operator to select what is allowed under this policy:
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Amount | Enter the allowed amount this policy is based on. This amount applies to the report owner only. |
Amount (Attendees Only) | Enter the allowed amount that applies to any attendees added to this expense type (This is only used for polices that are enforced By Line). |
Include | Indicate whether the following amounts are included in the total:
|
Click Next when finished.
Step 2: Expense Policy Query
The second step is to set up the queries to determine what attributes of an expense report will trigger the policy. These attributes can be based on the Organization Structure, Employee Profile or Expense Attributes.
To add a query, click the Add button.
- In the Query Field, select which attribute you would like to query against.
- Select the Condition of the query. These conditions may vary or even be removed depending on the Query Field selected.
- In: Select from a group and include in the policy
- Not In: Select from a group and exclude from the policy
- =: Query against an individual ID.
- <>: Query against all except an individual ID.
- Like: Query against a portion of an ID
- Not Like: query against all IDs that do not satisfy the portion of of the ID
- Enter the Value of the query.
- In or Not In: Click on the browse icon to bring up a list of available values. Select from the list and click OK.
- = or <>: Enter the specific ID
- Like or Not Like: Enter a portion of the ID using the '*' as a wild card.
- Click the Apply button.
Repeat until all applicable queries are added.
Validating Custom Fields
To validate against custom fields in the new admin, you must enter the data in the following format.
- In the Query Field, select either "Report custom field" or "Expense custom field"
- In the Parameter field, you must enter the parameter in the following format:
- <CustomFieldID>CustomFieldValue
For example, if I want to validate Custom Field ID #13 with value Y, I would enter:
In this case, "Y" is the FIELD_CODE for "Yes" in that Group.
To group portions of the query together by click on the Open Bracket and Close Bracket links.You can also click on the and link to change it to an or. This will allow you to create complex queries for a single policy.
When you have finished adding the queries, click Finish.
Step 3: Add Policy Approvers
If Enabled by this Policy was selected as the Approval Option, a third step will appear. This step is to add the approvers this expense report will be routed to when this policy is triggered.
By default, the system sets up a single level of approval for the policy. From here, you can:
- Click on the Description and enter the name of an approval level (by default it is the Policy ID)
- Add additional levels of approval by clicking the Add button.
- Select the Reset option.
When finished, click Save All.
Once the approval levels have been set, you must add the approvers to the individual levels:
- Click on the Approvers link for the level you wish to add approvers
- Click Add and select the Employee from the Employee list.
- Click OK when finished
Select the following attributes for each approver:
Attribute
Description
Entry Typ
Time/Expense: the approver can approve both Timesheets & Expense Reports
Expense: the approver will only approve Expense Reports
Time: the approver will only approve expense reportsApproval Right
Approve Only: The approver may only approve or reject the expense lines assigned to him Modify and Approve: The approver may modify the expense report as well as approve it.
Approval Type
Both: The approver can approve all expense reports routed to this approval group
Primary: The approver approves all expense reports except for their own that are routed to this approval group. Secondary: The approver only approves the primary approver's expense reportsEmail Option
Determine whether or not to e-mail this approver based on this policy.
Active Flag
Determine whether or not this approver is currently active.
If the policy is modified in anyway, you must Publish the policy again by clicking the corresponding Publish link. This verifies that the query is valid. If a policy is not published, it will not be used in the validation process, even if it is active.
Click Save All when finished.