The Expense Policy screen in Emburse Spend lets you define and enforce how employees can submit, approve, and reimburse expenses. By creating flexible policy rules, admins can set clear limits, automate approval routing, and maintain compliance across all spending activity.
This article explains the different rule types, how to build and manage them, and how to route expenses for review or approval.
Blocking rules vs. warning rules
There are two rule types:
- Blocking rules: Prevent users from submitting an expense that violates policy.
- Warning rules: Display guidance during submission. Users can fix the expense or submit with the policy violation flagged for review.
If you try to submit an expense that violates a blocking rule, Emburse Spend prevents submission and identifies the rule.
Warning rules alert you to the policy and give you the option to go back and fix the expense or submit it anyway.
Expenses that violate a warning rule show an orange warning icon on the Transactions screen.
Select the Warning icon to open the expense and view the list of warnings in the Expense Details window.
You can search and filter for expenses with warnings.
The Emburse Spend rule builder
The rule builder enforces your organization’s policy using flexible conditions.
To start, select Add a Rule on the Expense Policy screen, then configure the fields below.
Requirement
Requirement rules collect information from the submitter (for example, receipt, category, custom field, or note).
- Source: Apply to every expense, corporate card expenses, or reimbursable expenses only.
- Submitted By: Apply to everyone, a specific member, or a Team Field such as Department or Location.
- Of Amount: Route expenses above this amount to the approver, if applicable.
-
Optional:
- Categorized As: Select one or more categories.
- Tagged As: Select one or more Expense Fields.
- Warn or Block? Decide whether users can submit with a warning or are blocked.
Budget
Budget rules enforce spending limits by amount and time.
- Expenses should not exceed: Set the threshold for the budget.
- Per: Choose the time frame: per expense, day, month, quarter, or year.
- Source: Apply to every expense, corporate card expenses, or reimbursable expenses only.
- Submitted By: Everyone, a specific member, or a Team Field.
-
Optional:
- Categorized As: Select one or more categories.
- Tagged As: Select one or more Expense Fields.
- Warn or Block? Decide whether users can submit with a warning or are blocked.
Time limit
Time limit rules require users to submit expenses within a set window.
- Expenses should be submitted in: Set the window in days, months, quarters, or years.
- Source: Apply to every expense, corporate card expenses, or reimbursable expenses only.
- Submitted By: Everyone, a specific member, or a Team Field.
-
Optional:
- Categorized As: Select one or more categories.
- Tagged As: Select one or more Expense Fields.
- Warn or Block? Decide whether users can submit with a warning or are blocked.
Daily rates
Daily Rate rules help you manage per-diem-style expenses (for example, hotels). You can set a dollar limit or require check-in and check-out dates with an unlimited budget.
To require dates without a budget, select the Unlimited option.
Edit or delete a rule
To edit an existing rule, select the 
next to the rule.
To delete a rule, select the 
next to the rule.
Route expenses to specific approvers
Create an Approval Routing rule to send certain expenses to specific managers or admins. Routed expenses appear in Pending for admins until they are approved.
For setup steps, see Use Expense Approval Routing.
Prevent admins or managers from approving their own expenses
Turn on Prevent administrators or managers from ever approving their own expenses to require a different admin to approve an admin’s expense.
Prevent non-admins from editing approved expenses
Turn on Prevent non-admins from editing their expenses after they have been approved to lock approved expenses from editing by non-admins.