Skip to main content
English (Australia) English (Canada) English (Malaysia) English (New Zealand) English (Singapore)

Set up and manage expense categories and policies

Updated

Available for the following HR plans: Premium, Platinum
Available for the following User Access levels: Manager, Admin

Expense policies allow you to define granular spending rules for your organisation. By creating tailored policies, you can set specific monetary limits that reset on a periodic basis (e.g., monthly or quarterly) and restrict access to certain expense categories to specific employees, teams, or locations.

This feature is only available for Employment Hero and Employment Hero Payroll-connected organisations. If you use Employment Hero only, then this feature is not available for your account type.

Getting started

Add an expense policy

By creating a policy, you can determine exactly how much a specific group of employees can spend within an expense category over a set period.

  1. Select the Settings menu.
  2. Under Payroll, select Expense Categories.
  3. Click the Expense Policies tab.
  4. Click the Add Policy button.
  5. Select the Expense Category this policy will attach to.
  6. Enter an Expense Policy Name (e.g., Executives or Sales Team).
  7. Under Spending Limits, enter the monetary amount and select the Reset Period (Monthly, Quarterly, or Annual).
  8. Select Create Policy.
Assign employees to a policy

Once a policy is created, you must assign the relevant employees so they can view the category and submit claims against it.

  1. From the Expense Policies tab, find the relevant policy.
  2. Under Actions (the three-dot menu), select Assign Employees.
  3. Choose from the following options:
    • Assign to all employees: Makes the category available to everyone in the organisation.
    • Restrict to only those specifically assigned: Allows you to filter by Location, Team, Employment Type, or select specific individuals.
  4. Select Save.
Manage expense categories

Use the Expense Categories tab to manage the high-level settings for your claim types, such as tax codes and visibility.

  1. Select the Settings menu.
  2. Under Payroll, select Expense Categories.
  3. In the list view, you can see the Tax Code, Tax Rate, Status, and the number of Policies attached to each category.
  4. To update a category, click the Actions (three-dot) menu and select Edit Category.
Employee visibility and allowance cards

Employees assigned to a policy will see Expense Allowance Cards at the top of their My Expenses page.

  • Real-time Usage: Cards display the total, used, and remaining allowance for the current period. If no limit is specified, the allowance will be reported as "Unlimited."
  • Delineation of Funds: The usage is broken down into Paid, Approved, and Pending amounts.
  • Inline Visibility: When an employee creates a new claim and selects a category, the relevant allowance card appears automatically within the modal so they can see how the claim affects their remaining balance.
  • Reset Information: The card indicates exactly when the current allowance will reset.

Users will see the following message if they exceed their policy limit when submitting an expense. Image showing an error message notifying an employee that their expense has exceeded their allowance

Further information

If you are looking for further ideas, try our community.

Related articles