This article is for: admins, finance teams and approvers.
Expense checks take the manual review off your team. One, our AI assistant, checks each expense against your expense policy once it has the details it needs, and tells employees and reviewers what to fix, so your team only reviews the expenses that need a decision.
Expense checks
Overview
Every company starts with 28 ready-made checks (table below), and you add your own in plain words. Checks never stop anyone from submitting or approving. Reviewers decide, unless you set your approval flow to approve or reject automatically. Looking for Spending policies? They're now Expense checks.
What you need: the Can access expense settings permission, and One enabled in your company. Setting up your checks with One is free; each expense checked uses 2 One credits (see FAQ 14).
How to use
- Go to Settings > Expenses > Automations > Expense checks. The tag next to the title shows On or Off.
- Click Edit checks. One opens with a few suggestions.
- Pick one, or describe your rule and whether it's a warning or out of policy, for example "People can spend at most £100 a week on meals".
- One adds each rule it can verify under Soft flags — warning or Hard flags — out of policy, and tells you if a rule can't be checked.
- Keep chatting to adjust, then click Save. Leaving the page before saving loses your draft.
Turning off the switch next to Expense checks sends every expense to manual review through your approval flow; your checks are kept.
Ready-made checks
Hard flags mean out of policy; soft flags are warnings (see FAQ 8).
| Group | Hard flags (12) | Soft flags (16) |
|---|---|---|
| Timing | Date after sending · outside the employee's contract | Sent over 30 days after the document date · document date over a day off the receipt |
| Receipts | Missing, unreadable, card-machine slip, not itemised, invoiced to another business | |
| What was bought | Tobacco and gambling, fines, gift cards and cash, household items, hotel and travel extras, personal care, family and pet costs, personal subscriptions, donations | |
| Amounts | Claim more than 1% above the receipt total | Currency differs from the receipt |
| Context | No business purpose, guests not named, category doesn't fit | |
| Worth a look | Alcohol, business class, weekend or holiday, time off (needs the Time off module), mileage on a car rental day |
What employees and reviewers see
Each expense gets one result (In policy, Warning, Out of policy or Couldn't be checked) with One's explanation for every flag. Employees see it on the draft and can fix it first. Reviewers see a recommendation in the approval request, such as "Approval recommended". The Alerts column of the expenses list shows the flags.
To approve in-policy expenses automatically, use the result in your approval flow (see FAQ 2).
Tips and Best Practices
- Start from the ready-made checks and remove the ones that don't fit your company, instead of writing everything from scratch.
- Use warnings for "worth a look" and out of policy for hard limits. Too many hard flags train reviewers to ignore them.
- Decide what happens to expenses that couldn't be checked in your approval flow, so nothing is approved without a review by mistake.
- Want employees to read your policy too? Publish it as a document in the Handbook. Expense checks apply it; the Handbook shares it.
- Related: How do I set up the approval flow? · How do I handle duplicate expenses? · How does Factorial catch duplicates and other mistakes automatically? · How do I write an expense policy that One can check?
Troubleshooting and FAQ
Troubleshooting
- An expense says it couldn't be checked. Your company may have no One credits left, the check may not have finished within 1 hour, or there was a temporary error. Review it manually. Editing the expense runs the checks again.
- An expense keeps showing "Checking your company's policy..." While checks run, the expense shows this message. The employee can submit it anyway, and the approval starts after 1 hour at the latest. If it stays like that for longer, contact our support team with the link to the expense.
- Expenses don't show any result. Check that Expense checks are On, that you've saved at least one check, and that One is enabled. Drafts are only checked once they have all the required details.
- "These checks couldn't be saved." One's draft didn't pass validation. Ask One to refine the checks and try again.
- I don't see the Edit checks button. Check that One is enabled for your company and that you have the Can access expense settings permission.
FAQ
1. What do employees and reviewers see for each Expense checks result?
Each result shows a different message to the employee and to the reviewer, plus a short explanation from One for every flag, such as what the limit was and how much the expense went over:
| Result | Employee sees | Reviewer sees |
|---|---|---|
| In policy | "Good to send" | "Approval recommended" |
| Warning | "Worth a look before you send" (draft) or "Your approver may ask about this" (submitted) | "Review recommended" |
| Out of policy | "This is likely to come back to you" | "Rejection recommended" |
| Couldn't be checked | A message that the expense wasn't checked | A message that the expense wasn't checked: review it manually |
2. Can I approve in-policy expenses automatically?
Yes. In Settings > Expenses > Approval flow, click Edit and ask One, for example "Auto-approve expenses that pass the expense checks, send warnings to the employee's manager, and send anything out of policy to finance." Then review the flow and click Save. See How do I set up the approval flow?.
3. What do Expense checks do that a manual review doesn't?
One checks every expense and recommends approve, take a look, or reject, so your team only spends time on the expenses that need a decision. It checks your rules for regular, mileage and per diem expenses, and adds up spend over the day, week or month. It reads the receipt (itemized invoice, VAT, alcohol or tobacco, the type of business, totals that don't add up), so totals that don't add up or edited amounts are flagged before they're paid.
4. How do Expense checks help employees get expenses right?
Expense checks show the result while the expense is still a draft, with a plain explanation, so expenses come in right the first time and people are reimbursed sooner. One turns your policy, written in your own words, into checks, and tells you if a rule can't be checked, so your real policy is applied to every expense instead of a PDF nobody reads or a form that covers only some cases.
5. Which ready-made checks does every company get?
Every company starts with 28 ready-made Expense checks in six groups (timing, receipts, what was bought, amounts, context, worth a look): 12 hard flags and 16 soft flags, listed in the table under Ready-made checks. They're on by default. Ask One to edit or remove any of them: that is free. Each expense checked uses 2 One credits, once per expense. The time-off check needs the Time off module. If you had spending policies, your converted rules are added too.
6. What can I ask One to check?
Limits per expense ("Hotels can cost at most £150 a night"), limits over time (daily, weekly or monthly totals), deadlines ("Flag any expense submitted more than 30 days after the document date"), categories, mileage and per diem (for example a maximum distance for mileage), rules for some people only (by team, contract or other employee details), what's on the receipt ("Meals over £50 need an itemized invoice showing VAT", VAT, banned items, the type of business, or a different currency or category than the expense), and merchants you never reimburse, such as casinos. You can adjust checks by chatting, for example "make the meals limit £120 for the sales team" or "remove the weekend check".
7. Do I need a check for duplicate expenses or overlapping per diems?
No. Factorial flags expenses that look like one already submitted, and overlapping per diems, without a check. Duplicate alerts are visible only to people who can see all company expenses. See How do I handle duplicate expenses? and How does Factorial catch duplicates and other mistakes automatically?.
8. What's the difference between a hard flag and a soft flag?
A hard flag (out of policy) means One tells the employee the expense is likely to come back to them, and advises the reviewer against approving it as it stands. A soft flag (warning) means One warns the employee and asks the reviewer to take a look; the expense still goes through. Tell One which you want for each rule, for example "make a missing receipt out of policy, and the weekend check only a warning".
9. When do Expense checks run?
Checks start once the expense has all its required details; employees can submit meanwhile. Checks run again when the expense is edited (as a draft, in review, or sent back for changes). Approved, rejected and paid expenses aren't checked.
10. Does anyone get notified when Expense checks finish?
No. Nobody gets an email or notification when checks finish. The result is on the expense.
11. Does the approval flow wait for Expense checks?
Yes. The approval flow waits for the checks to finish. If they haven't finished after 1 hour, the approval starts anyway and the expense shows it couldn't be checked.
12. Can I filter the expenses list by policy result?
The Alerts column in the expenses list shows In policy or each flag's title, and you can use the Alerts filter to find expenses with a flag. To see the expenses that are ready to approve, use the Ready to approve tab in Spending > Employee expenses. See How do I find the expenses I need to approve?.
13. What happened to my spending policies?
They've been turned into Expense checks, so expenses keep being checked against the same rules, alongside the ready-made checks. Converted rules are soft flags (warnings). If a converted rule applies to a group of people, ask One to update it when people join the group.
14. How many One credits do Expense checks use?
Each expense checked uses 2 One credits, once per expense: checking it again after an edit is free. You'll see them as Expense policy rules in your One credits usage. Writing or changing your checks with One is free. If your company has no credits left, new expenses aren't checked against your policy and are reviewed manually. Duplicate detection and the other built-in checks keep working: they don't use credits.
15. I'm an employee. Can I turn off the policy message on my expense?
No, your company's admins decide whether checks are on. The message is there to help: it tells you what to fix before you send. It never stops you from submitting.
16. Can I set up Expense checks without One?
No. One is the only way to create and edit checks. That's what lets you write any rule your policy needs. You still review every change before saving.
17. Can a reviewer ignore a flag?
Yes. Flags are recommendations: reviewers can approve an expense with flags, or reject one that's in policy. The exception is an approval flow you set to approve or reject automatically.
18. Can I run the checks again on an expense?
There's no button for it. Checks run again automatically when the expense is edited.
19. One says it can't check one of my rules. Why?
One can only check what's in Factorial or on the receipt. For example, it can't know whether a client dinner was agreed by email.
20. Does One change my checks on its own?
No. Changes only take effect when you click Save.