Expense Policy

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
User Message	Enter a message to be displayed to the user if they violate the policy. To hide the references to the dollar amount and only display the written user message, include '$$$' at the beginning of the user message (without quotation marks).
Rule Apply On	Select how the amounts will be totaled: Total Per Report will validate the rule's maximum charge against the total amount of the expense in the selected expense type group or expense type (will not include per diem or advances). Total by Day will validate against the total amount of the expenses in the selected expense type group or the selected expense type charged in a single day. Per Line will validate against each individual charge of the selected expense.
Flag Lines	No Select this option if you do not want to flag the line items that violate this policy. This option would only be selected in case the policy is only supposed to trigger an exception approval, rather than flag the lines Only at Report Level Select this option if you would like the policy to generate one validation on the report level, rather than flagging each line item on the report. Yes 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: Disabled: This policy will not trigger additional approval. Enabled Approval by owner whenever the report created by proxy: If a report is submitted by a proxy, it will not be released to an approver until the owner re-releases it. Enabled Approval by owner whenever the report modified by others: If a report is modified by a proxy or an approver, the report must be re-released by the owner. Enabled Based on A Team approval: If the policy is violated, the report will be sent to the report owner's A Team Exception Approval. The corresponding approval groups need to be set up under A Team Approval type Enabled Based on B Team approval: If the policy is violated, the report will be sent to the report owner's B Team Exception Approval. The corresponding approval groups need to be set up under B Team Approval type Enabled Based on Employee Home Department: If the policy is violated, the report will be sent to the report owner's Home Department Manager. Enabled Based on Main Team approval: If the policy is violated, the report will be sent to the report owner's Main Team Approval. Enabled Based On This Policy: If the policy is violated, the report will be sent to the approver assigned to this policy directly
Replace Current Approval Flow	Yes Indicate whether you want the default approval flow to be replaced by the approval flow attached to this policy. No any additional approval will be appended to the approval structure based on the Approval Sequence Table.
Allow Override By Routing	Yes When routing an expense report to an additional approver an administrator will have an option to bypass this exception approval level No When routing an expense report to an additional approver an administrator will not be able to bypass this exception approval level
Allow Release	Indicate whether you want this Expense Report to be released if it violates the policy. No: The system will not allow the report to be submitted for approval unless the policy violation has been corrected. Yes: The system will warn the user that a policy has been violated, but will allow the user to submit the report. The validations warnings will be attached to the report. Yes but Notes Required: User can submit the expense, but must enter an explanation into the Expense line's notes field.
Condition
Amount Type	Enter an Amount Type for the policy: Absolute Amount for a specific Currency: The policy is based on an amount in a specific currency. If an amount on a report is in a foreign currency, it will be converted to this specific currency for comparison Absolute Amount based on Report Currency: The policy is based on an amount in the currency selected on the cover page of the expense report, the amounts entered only in the specified currency will be validated. Percentage Max Per diem: The policy is based on a percentage of the Max Per Diem. Percentage Meals Per diem: The policy is based on a percentage of the Meals Per Diem. Percentage Lodging Per diem: The policy is based on a percentage of the Lodging Per Diem. Percentage Lodging + Meals Per diem: The policy is based on a percentage of the Lodging and Meals Per Diem totaled together. Mileage Rate: The policy is based on a specific mileage rate Mileage/km Unit: The policy is based on the number of units entered. No specific amount, only exists: The policy is not based on an amount. This will remove the remaining fields. Percentage Employee Limit (by month or by year): The policy applies against the employee expense Limit Setup, set up either by month or by year Percentage Employee Limit by year: The policy is defined based on the limit defined in the employee Limit setup, as long as the limit is setup by year option. Percentage Employee Limit by month: The policy applies against the employee expense Limit Setup, set up by month Percentage Employee Limit by quarter: The policy applies against the employee expense Limit Setup, limit set by quarter Tip Percentage: The policy is based on the percentage of tip. Compare Additional Decimal Field to Business Amount: Validates the amount entered in the Additional Field against the business amount of the line. The additional field needs to be setup as a decimal and the policy query needs to reference this additional field. Percentage Break Down Per Diem Breakfast: the policy applies against the per diem break out amount for breakfast. This policy only applies to expense type setup with format "Other" with flag breakfast/lunch/dinner Percentage Break Down Per Diem Lunch: the policy applies against the per diem break out amount for lunch. This policy only applies to expense type setup with format "Other" with flag breakfast/lunch/dinner Percentage Break Down Per Diem Dinner: the policy applies against the per diem break out amount for dinner. This policy only applies to expense type setup with format "Other" with flag breakfast/lunch/dinner
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: Between Equal Greater (>) Greater or Equal (>=) Less (<) Less or Equal (<=) Not Between Not Equal
Amount/Percent	Enter the allowed amount/percentage required by this policy. This amount applies to the report owner only.
Amount/Percent (For Attendees Only)	Enter the allowed amount/percent that applies to any attendees added to this expense type (This is only used for polices that are enforced By Line).
Business Amount Included	Indicate whether the policy limit applies to/includes the business amount of an expense line item
Tip Included	Indicate whether the policy limit applies to/includes the tip amount of an expense line item
Alcohol Included	Indicate whether the policy limit applies to/includes the alcohol amount of an expense line item
Tax Included	Indicate whether the policy limit applies to/includes the tax amount of an expense line item

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.

Click Add to add an exception approval group:

Level: In case more than one level of approval need to be triggered by the policy, this field can be used to define the sequence of the approval levels. If there is only a single level of approval, then leave the number at 0
Description: Enter the name of the exception approval Groups
Reset Option:
- Reset All Reset from the beginning of approval structure if changes are made by approver.
- Reset Current Level All the approvals currently in progress will be reset.
- Reset Off No reset in approval structure if changes are made by approver
- Reset This Level Only the approvals for the group you're a part of will be reset.
Approval Type:
- Anyone Can Approve Any approver in the group can approve an expense report
- Everyone Must Approve All approvers within the approval group must approve
Enable Override By Routing:
- Yes When routing an expense report to an additional approver an administrator will have an option to bypass this exception approval level
- No When routing an expense report to an additional approver an administrator will not be able to bypass this exception approval level

When finished, click Save.

Once the approval levels have been set, you must add the approvers to the individual levels:

Click on the Approvers tab in the bottom window pane.
Click Add and select the Employee from the Employee list.
Click OK when finished

Select the following attributes for each approver:

Attribute	Description
Entry Type	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 reports
Approval 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. Review Only: Does not trigger the approval structure at all. Can only be used for data restriction on the reports.
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 reports
Email 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 when finished adding the approvers

Click Finish on the top right corner of the Approval Flows pop-up window to finish setting up the policy.