Expense Management sits on top of the finance ledger, so its setup is mostly declaring where things post and who signs off. Work through this page in order: control accounts first (posting fails fast without them), then the masters, then policy, then the approval process, then security. A tenant that completes the five is fully operational — there is no hidden switch beyond them.
1. Control accounts
Create these GL accounts in the chart of accounts and set each one's control type. Expense posting refuses to run with a clear message naming any missing account, so gaps surface immediately rather than as bad postings.
| Control type | Carries | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Employee Payable | what the company owes employees for posted claims | credited on claim posting, cleared by reimbursement |
| Employee Advance | what employees owe back for paid advances | Account Type must be Current Assets; no chart template creates it — see Employee advances |
| Card Payable | the liability to company-card issuers | a card master may carry its own account instead |
| Payroll Payable | payroll-mode claims handed to payroll (by the run's Calculate or Settle via Payroll) | required only when payroll-mode claims are used; the salary payment batch pays the amount with the salary — see Expense claims through payroll |
| Tax Credit (input GST) | recovered tax from ITC-eligible lines | required as soon as any line claims ITC |
| Bank | reimbursement, advance and card payments | your existing bank GL accounts |
The employee-side control accounts do not require a party on their journal lines — the employee is identified on the open item instead, which is what keeps the GL summarized while the subledger holds per-person detail.
2. Masters
- Expense categories — the spend taxonomy that policy rules target. Each category records a default GL account, but it is not copied to claim lines, so claimants still choose each line's Expense GL Account. Set-up and field reference: Categories, grades and limits.
- Grades — bands on employee records, used to scope policies per seniority.
- Cost centers and projects — the dimensions stamped on claims and lines. Cost centers reach the journal; projects are tags that group billable recharge per customer and project.
- Company cards — one master per card, mapped to its cardholder; see Company cards.
- Employee records — every claimant needs one, carrying their manager (approval routing), grade (policy) and bank details. This is usually already true in a tenant running HR or payroll.
3. Policies
Create at least one active expense policy with the rules that mirror your written policy — category caps, the receipt threshold, blocked categories, late-submission and duplicate checks — choosing each rule's action deliberately: warn, require higher approval, auto-disallow, or hard block. Each policy covers one company (its Partner Account must be set) and one grade (required), so create one policy per grade and company, and make sure every claimant's employee record has a grade. Type each rule type as its exact code, and add the Action field to the rule form before you rely on any action other than warn: the standard rule forms do not include it. The full model is in Expense policies. Evaluation runs only when someone chooses Evaluate Policy on the claim, and only auto-disallow changes the money — hard-block and higher-approval findings are recorded for the approver but stop nothing. Make evaluating before submission part of your claim procedure so disallowances land before approval and posting.
4. The approval process
There is no shipped default route — build one on the Expense Claim entity following Approval processes. The pattern that fits most organizations:
- Step 1: the claimant's manager, resolved from the manager field on the employee record.
- Step 2: a finance role for the money check — optionally entered only above a threshold, with a skip below it.
- Keep maker-checker on so nobody approves their own claim, and enable lock on submission.
- Require-higher-approval policy findings do not add a step by themselves. If flagged claims need an extra sign-off, add a step whose entry condition checks Has Policy Violation on the claim.
Two claim-screen settings usually need attention at the same time. Reimbursement Mode ships with Finance payment and Payroll; keep the stored value Payroll unchanged, because approval and Reimburse depend on it. And the standard claim header shows only Evaluate Policy, Post, Edit and Delete — add Reimburse (and, if you want to hand payroll-mode claims over before the run is calculated, Settle via Payroll) to the claim's view layout for finance users. Details are in Submit and approve expense claims.
The expense module listens to the process's decisions on its own: outcomes are mirrored onto the claim, and the final approval posts it — you do not configure posting into the process. Advances can carry their own simpler process on the Expense Advance entity, with field updates stamping the approval outcome. Approving an advance posts nothing, and Pay Advance does not check the approval, so finance must confirm it before paying.
5. Security
Grant through security profiles: employees need the Expenses app with create on claims and advances (record security scoping them to their own); managers additionally act through the approvals surfaces; finance needs the reimbursement batch, card and category/policy entities; policy and category administration is its own grant. When someone reports a missing screen or button, walk the access checklist before changing configuration.
Common questions
What breaks first if a control account is missing?
The first posting that needs it — claim posting for Employee Payable, advance payment for Employee Advance, an ITC line for Tax Credit — fails with a message naming the account type. Because claim posting runs after final approval, the approval stands and the claim shows approved-but-not-posted; create the account and post the claim manually.
Do policy changes need anything re-activated?
No. A policy applies whenever it is active and the claim date falls in its effective window; rule changes take effect from the next evaluation. Use the effective dates to stage a policy change ahead of time rather than editing on the morning it starts.
Can different companies in one tenant have different setups?
Yes — control accounts, policies and cards are all per company, so each company posts to its own chart and enforces its own rules. Configure each company you run expenses in. Expense categories are the exception: they carry a company field, but every category is offered to every claimant, so keep one shared list and make the rules company-specific through each company's policies.