Creating an Expense Policy – Abacus

The Abacus Spend Policy page allows you to create any number of rules that will help you enforce your company's expense policy and create controls around expense submission and approval. If you are an Admin, click Spend Policy in your Admin sidebar to view, create, and edit custom rules.

Abacus Spend Policy

Your Abacus Spend Policy can include the following components:

Policy Overview: Add guidance for your team that will appear at the top of their view-only Spend Policy page in Abacus. This is a great place to link to more detailed internal documentation about your expense policy.
Rules (Blocking and Warning): Rules allow you to remind or require users to include certain information when submitting expenses. Learn how to create Spend Policy Rules below.
Auto-Approval Rules: Auto-approval rules allow you to set criteria for expenses that should be approved without Manager or Admin review. Learn more about auto-approval rules.
Approval Routing: Approval routing allows you to route expenses to specific Managers or Admins based on criteria. Learn more about approval routing.

All Abacus users can view their company's Spend Policy rules by clicking Spend Policy in their Personal sidebar.

Blocking vs Warning Rules

There are two main types of rules: blocking and warning rules. Blocking rules prevent users from submitting an expense entirely. Warning rules pop up during submission to let the member know how to edit the expense so that it's within policy or to allow them to submit the expense with policy violations flagged during the review and approval process.

If a member attempts to submit an expense that violates a blocking rule, Abacus will prevent the member from submitting it and tell the member what policy item they have not included.

For example, if users require a receipt for expenses over a certain amount, they will be unable to submit their expense until a receipt is attached.

Warning rules alert users to the fact that they're going against company policy and give them the option to go back and fix the expense or send it anyway.

If someone submits an expense that violates a warning rule, admins will see an orange warning icon next to the expense on the Reimbursable Expenses page.

You can click the warning icon to open the expense details and see a list of warnings.

Creating Spend Policy Rules

The Abacus rule builder is very flexible and can be used in many different ways to enforce rules based on your organization's unique expense policy.

Follow these steps to create a spend policy rule:

1. In your Admin sidebar, click Spend Policy.

2. Click Add in the Rules section.

3. Select the type of Rule you would like to create and follow the prompts to create your rule.

Requirement Rules: Requirement Rules require that users include specific information such as a receipt or a custom field to submit an expense that meets certain criteria.
Budget Rules: Budget Rules enforce spending limits for users based on particular criteria such as time limits or categories. Budget Rules can also be used to set daily rates for expenses that are charged on a per diem basis.
Time Limit Rules: Time Limit Rules require that users submit expenses within a certain time threshold, ensuring punctual submission of expense data.

Requirement Rules

Requirement Rules require that users include specific information such as a receipt or a custom field to submit an expense that meets certain criteria.

To create a Requirement Rule:

1. In the Create a Rule dialog on the Spend Policy page, select Requirement.

2. Select the type of information you would like to require in the Require a(n)... dropdown.

3. Choose the expense criteria for which you would like to enforce the requirement.

Source: Choose between every expense, corporate card expenses, or reimbursable expenses only.
Submitted By: Choose who the rule should apply to. You can choose everyone, a particular member, or a certain custom Team Field like Department or Location.
Of Amount: Choose any amount to apply this rule to all expenses or set an amount above which the rule should apply.
Categorized As: Optionally, select an expense Category for which this rule should apply.

4. Select Warn to allow users to override the policy and still submit expenses that violate the rule or Block to prevent users from submitting the expenses that violate the rule.

5. Click Preview Rule to review the rule based on the settings you selected.

6. Click Create Rule.

Budget Rules

Budget Rules enforce spending limits for users based on particular criteria such as time limits or categories.

To create a Budget Rule:

1. In the Create a Rule dialog on the Spend Policy page, select Budget.

2. Input the amount for the particular budget in the Expenses should not exceed... field.

3. Choose the timeframe for the budget:

The start of the Fiscal year in Abacus begins on January 1 and is hard coded on the backend. This means that any rule created on a per-year basis would apply from Jan 1–Dec 31.

Select Per and choose a timeframe from the dropdown for budgets that are time-based.
Select Hotel & car daily rate for expenses that are charged on a per diem basis.
By creating a Daily Rate Budget Rule, you are also requiring your employees to select a check-in and check-out date for expenses that meet the criteria. This is how the daily budget is calculated.

4. Choose the expense criteria for which you would like to enforce the budget.

Source: Choose between every expense, corporate card expenses, or reimbursable expenses only.
Submitted By: Choose who the rule should apply to. You can choose everyone, a particular member, or a certain custom Team Field like Department or Location.
Of Amount: Choose any amount to apply this rule to all expenses or set an amount above which the rule should apply.
Categorized As: Optionally, select an expense Category for which this rule should apply.

5. Select Warn to allow users to override the policy and still submit expenses that violate the rule or Block to prevent users from submitting the expenses that violate the rule.

6. Click Preview Rule to review the rule based on the settings you selected.

7. Click Create Rule.

Time Limit Rules

Time Limit Rules require that users submit expenses within a certain time threshold, ensuring punctual submission of expense data.

To create a Time Limit Rule:

1. In the Create a Rule dialog on the Spend Policy page, select Time Limit.

2. Input the timeframe in the Expenses should be submitted with... fields.

3. Choose the expense criteria for which you would like to enforce the timeframe.

Source: Choose between every expense, corporate card expenses, or reimbursable expenses only.
Submitted By: Choose who the rule should apply to. You can choose everyone, a particular member, or a certain custom Team Field like Department or Location.
Of Amount: Choose any amount to apply this rule to all expenses or set an amount above which the rule should apply.
Categorized As: Optionally, select an expense Category for which this rule should apply.

4. Select Warn to allow users to override the policy and still submit expenses that violate the rule or Block to prevent users from submitting the expenses that violate the rule.

5. Click Preview Rule to review the rule based on the settings you selected.

6. Click Create Rule.

Editing and Deleting Rules

Existing rules can be edited by clicking Edit next to the rule you intend to make changes to. To eliminate a rule entirely, click Delete next to the rule.

By creating a rule related to a specific Expense Field, that field will show up on the expense submission box; in this example, it's FY25 Kickoff.