7 ways to automate your unique T&E policies with AI

No two corporate T&E policies are exactly alike. AppZen Expense Audit uses artificial intelligence (AI) to give enterprise finance teams the power to automate their specific T&E policies. Its patented finance AI can replicate and manage your unique policies, risk assessments, and manual decision-making processes to give your finance team expert, precise policy control at scale.

Here are some examples to show you how AI can help enforce your specific corporate policies.

1. Enforce different thresholds for specific projects

In project- or grant-driven organizations, there may be unique thresholds and policies for specific projects. For example, maybe a business class airfare is allowed for an overseas client project but isn’t allowed for other purposes. Expense Audit's finance AI lets you automatically create custom rules to monitor spend within specific general ledger (GL) codes that represent client projects, funding grants, company events, and more.

2. Enhance AppZen's existing foreign official checks with a custom taxonomy

There are a number of anti-bribery and corruption regulations around the world, including the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in the US, the UK Anti-bribery and Corruption Act, and more. These regulations prohibit bribery (gifts, meals, entertainment, cash compensation, and employment opportunities) in connection with international business, and violations carry civil and criminal penalties. While Expense Audit already reviews attendee names against anti-bribery and corruption regulations, many companies have specific variations or exceptions they’d like to track. With Expense Audit's finance AI, you can create a custom taxonomy (a list of variations or exceptions) to detect whether someone is a foreign official and send a notification.

3. Flag expenses outside of an approved brand list

Some organizations have rules against reimbursing products from competitors, although they’re difficult to enforce. It’s just not possible to comb through every line item of every receipt. Expense Audit's AI can be configured to flag any brands outside of your product lines. For example, if you work at Coca-Cola, AI can flag “Pepsi” or any Pepsi brands when they appear on an expense report.

4. Understand custom documents

Many organizations require pre-approval for specific expenses, such as taking clients out to a sporting event. As part of the policy, employees need to submit documentation, such as a signed business justification document along with their expense. Although these are unique to each company and in a non-standard format, Expense Audit can read, understand, and audit pre-approval documents to make sure the document was signed and your policy is followed.

5. Manage lifetime employee perks

Some employees are given a specific amount they’re allowed to submit for reimbursement over time, such as a lifetime allowance for productivity tools, like headphones or office chairs. With Expense Audit, you can create a custom rule to keep track of these expenses for each employee to ensure they don’t exceed the allowance over time.

6. Configure remote work expenses

Many companies have moved teams from required in-office attendance to optional remote work or hybrid work environments, in which employees work partly from home and partly in the office, in shifts or smaller groups. Expense Audit can use dynamic conditions (who is working remotely on a given day) to apply different work-from-home policies automatically. If someone who’s going into the office submits a remote work expense, such as “home internet”, this will be flagged for further review.

7. Track Missing Receipt Affidavit submissions per employee

When an employee loses a receipt or it’s not available, some companies require them to fill out a Missing Receipt Affidavit (MRA) and attach it to their expense report. Expense Audit can keep track of the aggregated MRAs over time for each employee to make sure this exception isn’t abused.

These are just a few of the ways Expense Audit can help you further tailor your expense policy to your specific needs. From document understanding to routing to designated approvals, Expense Audit's finance AI can automate it. It's now possible to implement your spend strategy precisely and dynamically – without hiring an army. To learn more, request a demo, today.