Expense policy audit

Purpose

Test each expense claim and supporting receipt against the applicable company policy, quantify exceptions, and produce an evidence-backed review queue.

Scope

Assess claim ID, employee, cost center, expense date, merchant, category, currency, amount, tax, trip or project, approval status, receipt fields, duplicate indicators, per-diem, mileage, lodging, meal, entertainment, and advance offsets.

Excluded: approving reimbursement, contacting employees, booking corrections, tax advice, and deciding whether a policy exception should be granted.

Data basis

• Expense register with claim ID, line ID, submitter, date, category, amount, currency, project, and approval state.
• Receipts with merchant, receipt date, total, currency, tax, payment method, and line items.
• Expense policy, rate table, approval matrix, employee directory, and prior claims.

Result

An audit sheet with pass/fail/unclear tests, policy clause, receipt citation, duplicate group, unsupported amount, and query text, plus an exception summary.

Quality criteria

• Every claim line has a policy result and source citation.
• Arithmetic uses receipt currency and stated exchange-rate source; no unsupported conversion is silently made.
• Duplicate candidates show the matching fields and are not automatically removed.
• Queries ask only for evidence needed to resolve a named exception.

Instructions

Test policy rules in order: required receipt, date and business purpose, category eligibility, amount or rate cap, currency, duplicate, approval, and coding. Use the policy’s threshold and tolerance, not a guessed value. Distinguish missing receipt from receipt mismatch and policy breach from insufficient evidence. Keep employee names limited to the audit output required by scope.

For shared meals, preserve attendee count and claimed allocation so a reviewer can distinguish a split from a duplicate. Compare receipt tax and total without recalculating tax liability. Use the claim line as the reporting grain even when one receipt supports several lines.

Adapt before use

• Add the current expense policy, rate table, approval matrix, and exchange-rate rule.
• Map claim, receipt, employee, cost-center, category, and approval columns.
• Define duplicate matching keys, materiality threshold, and allowed exception codes.