Create a Global Expense Rule

The Expense Policies 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.

Configure Admin Approval and Edit Controls

Use these Global Expense Rules settings to control who can approve expenses and who can edit approved expenses.

1. Turn on Prevent administrators or managers from ever approving their own expenses to require a different admin to approve an admin expense.

   

2. Turn on Prevent non-admins from editing their expenses after they have been approved to lock approved expenses from editing by non-admins.

   

Configure Comment Requirement for Policy Checks

Admins can control whether users must enter a comment when responding to warning policy checks.

Comment Required toggle

Determines whether a user must enter a comment when submitting an expense that triggers a policy response.

Behavior

• On: Users must enter a comment to submit an expense when an expense triggers a warning policy check.
• Off: Users can submit an expense without entering a comment when an expense triggers a warning policy check.

Applies To

• Applies to warning policy violations.
• Emburse Assurance rules always require a comment. This setting does not affect them.

Emburse Spend Rule Builder

The Emburse Spend rule builder enforces your organization’s policy using flexible conditions.

Blocking Rules vs. Warning Rules

There are two rule enforcement 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 and Reimbursements 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.

Create a Rule

1. On the Expense Policies, select ADD.

   

2. Choose a rule type.

   

   Use this table to choose the appropriate rule type.

   Rule Type	First Section in Dialog	What to Enter or Select	When to Use
   Requirement	Requirement	Select a requirement type (receipt, category, custom field, check-in/check-out date, or note).	Use when submitters must provide required expense details.
   Budget	Budget Limit	Enter a limit amount, then select a period, or select Flat hotel & car daily rate.	Use to enforce spend ceilings by amount and time period.
   Time limit	Submission Limit	Enter a count and select a time unit (days, months, quarters, or years).	Use to require expense submission within a defined time window.

3. Configure the rule fields.

   

   Use this table to complete the remaining shared fields.

   Section	What to Enter or Select	Required	Guidance
   Payment Source	Reimbursable, virtual card, physical card (select one or more).	Yes	Select multiple sources when one rule should apply across payment methods.
   Applicable Users	Anyone, or a specific scope (department, location, office, project, or user).	Yes	Start with Anyone for broad coverage, then narrow scope as needed.
   Amount	Any amount, or Over with a threshold amount.	Yes	Use Over when policy should apply only above a defined amount.
   Categories	Select one or more categories.	No	Leave blank to apply across all categories.
   Tags	Select relevant tags.	No	Use when policy depends on specific Expense Fields.
   Enforcement	Warn Only or Block.	Yes	Warn Only allows submission with a warning. Block prevents submission until resolved.

4. Select PREVIEW RULE to review the criteria you configured and confirm the rule works as intended.

5. To update the rule, select REVISE. To save the rule, select CREATE RULE.

   

Emburse Spend creates the rule and enforces it based on your configuration.

Edit or Delete a Rule

To edit an existing rule, select the pencil next to the rule.

To delete a rule, select the trash can 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 Needs Manager Review for admins until an approver approves them.

For setup steps, see Use Expense Approval Routing.