Expense types: limits, receipts and rules

An expense type is a spending policy expressed as settings: what can be claimed, by whom, up to how much, with what evidence, and how much the employee bears themselves. Nearly every question about whether a claim is allowed is answered here.

Where: Settings › Expenses › Expense types You need: the expense settings right

Before You Start

Have the policy written down first. An expense type is the enforcement of a policy, not a substitute for having one. If the policy is unclear, the settings will be too, and people will discover the rules by having claims rejected.

Decide the accounting treatment. Each type carries a classification and can carry a cost centre, which is how expenses reach your accounts correctly.

What evidence you require

Setting	Requires
Receipt required	A receipt attached to the claim
Receipt number required	The receipt's own number recorded
TIN required	The supplier's tax identification number
VAT amount required	The VAT broken out
Receipt backdate	How far back a receipt may be dated
Description required	An explanation from the claimant

The tax fields matter more than they look: if you intend to reclaim input VAT, the data has to be captured at claim time. Adding the requirement later does not retrofit it onto claims already made.

The six kinds of limit

This is where most of the policy lives, and the limits stack:

Limit	Caps
Per claim	A single claim
Per employee	What one employee can claim, with a count
Per client	What can be claimed against one client, with a count
Per period	Spend over a monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or yearly window
Total budget	The whole type, across everyone
Wage limit	A multiple of the employee's monthly basic wage

Two of these are worth dwelling on.

The period limit has a frame. A yearly limit can run on the calendar or from the employee's hire date. Hire-date framing gives every employee a full allowance from the day they join, rather than a pro-rated slice of the company year — usually fairer, and usually what people assume is happening.

The wage limit is a multiple of monthly basic wage, optionally including other payments. It scales the entitlement to the person, which suits things like relocation or equipment allowances where a flat figure would be generous to one person and inadequate for another.

Excess and co-pay

These two work like an insurance policy, and they are the settings employees most often misunderstand:

Setting	Means
Excess	The amount the employee bears before anything is reimbursed
Co-pay	The percentage of the amount above the excess the employee still bears

A worked example. With an excess of 500 and a co-pay of 20%, on a claim of 2,000:

The first 500 is the employee's
Of the remaining 1,500, the employee bears 20% — 300
The company reimburses 1,200

⚠️ If you set an excess or a co-pay, say so in your policy in exactly these terms. An employee who claims 2,000 and is reimbursed 1,200 will assume something went wrong unless they already knew the rule.

Who can claim it

Types can be restricted by profile group, position, employment type, or named individuals, and probationary employees can be excluded outright.

Restricting by group ages better than restricting by named individuals — people join and leave, and a named list quietly goes stale.

Vendors and approvers

Approved vendors restrict a type to a defined supplier list — appropriate where you have negotiated rates or need spend to go through particular suppliers.

Replace approvers lets the type override the normal approval route, so a sensitive category can go to a specific person regardless of the claimant's usual chain.

How to create an expense type

Open Settings › Expenses › Expense types.
Name it and set its classification and cost centre.
Set the evidence requirements.
Set the limits you need — start with per-claim and per-period.
Set excess and co-pay if your policy has them.
Restrict who can claim it.
Add approved vendors if applicable.
Test with one real claim before publishing the type.

What Happens Next

Employees can claim against the type, within its limits.
Limits are evaluated as claims are made, so a limit reached mid-period blocks further claims until the window resets.
The classification and cost centre carry through to accounting.
Changing a type affects future claims; it does not revisit claims already approved.

Tips

Submit one real claim against a new type before letting anyone else use it. Limits, excess and required fields interact, and the claim form is where you see the result.
Prefer period limits with a hire-date frame for annual allowances, unless your policy genuinely runs on the calendar year.
Publish the excess and co-pay to employees. These are the settings that generate complaints, entirely because nobody was told.
Use groups, not named profiles. A list of individuals is a maintenance job nobody remembers.
Review total budgets quarterly. A type that quietly exhausts its budget starts rejecting valid claims, and the claimant sees a refusal rather than an explanation.

Troubleshooting / FAQ

Q: An employee cannot claim against a type. Check the eligibility restrictions, whether they are on probation, and whether a limit has been reached.

Q: A claim was reimbursed for less than it was for. Excess and co-pay. Work through the calculation with them — the figures are deterministic.

Q: The annual limit reset at an odd time. The period frame is set to hire date rather than calendar.

Q: A claim was rejected for a missing receipt number. That type requires it. The requirement is per type, not company-wide.

Q: We changed a limit — does it affect approved claims? No. Changes apply to claims made afterwards.