The right approval setup lets most expenses through quickly and puts people's time only where it's needed. Below are ready-to-adapt examples for a startup, an SME and a multinational, with the exact words to give One, our AI assistant. One turns them into Expense checks (is the expense within policy?) and an approval flow (who reviews it?).

How the two pieces work together

Overview

• Expense checks read every expense and give it a result: In policy, Warning, Out of policy or Couldn't be checked.
• The approval flow decides what happens next: approve automatically, ask a person, or reject, based on the expense's details and its Expense checks result. Rules point to roles, like "the employee's manager", so the flow keeps working when people change teams. See How do I set up the approval flow? for every option.

What you need: the Can access expense settings permission, and One enabled in your company.

How to use

1. Go to Settings > Expenses, click Expense checks under Automations, then Edit checks, and describe your policy. See How do I check expenses against my expense policy?
2. In Settings > Expenses, click Approval flow under Configuration, then Edit, and describe who approves what. See How do I set up the approval flow?
3. Review what One drafted on the page and click Save. Nothing changes until you save.

Startup (up to about 50 people)

Goal: speed. Founders don't want to approve coffee, and nobody has a finance team yet.

Ask One for your flow:

“Auto-approve expenses that pass the expense checks and are under £100. Send everything else to the employee's manager. If the employee has no manager, send it to the CEO.”

SME (about 50 to 500 people)

Goal: a finance check on what matters, without slowing down the rest.

Ask One for your flow:

"Auto-approve expenses that pass the expense checks and are under £200. Send warnings and anything over £200 to the employee's manager. After the manager, send expenses over £1,000 and anything out of policy to the finance team."

Check One's summary before you save (see FAQ 5). More checks to add: see FAQ 7.

Multinational (several legal entities or countries)

Goal: the same control everywhere, with local finance teams owning their entity.

Ask One for your flow:

"Auto-approve expenses that pass the expense checks and are under £150. Send everything else to the employee's manager. Then send expenses of the Spain legal entity to the Spain finance team and of the Germany legal entity to the Germany finance team. Send expenses over £5,000 to the CFO as a last step."

Tips and Best Practices

• Start simple. One or two steps cover most companies. Add steps only when you see a real need.
• Decide what happens to expenses that couldn't be checked, so nothing is approved without anyone looking at it.
• Use roles, not names, so the flow survives people joining and leaving.
• Ask One to explain your flow ("explain my approval flow") and check it once a quarter.

Related articles: How do I set up the approval flow? · How do I check expenses against my expense policy? · How do I get my team to submit expenses right the first time?

Troubleshooting and FAQ

Troubleshooting

An expense went to the wrong person.
The first rule that matches wins. Make sure specific rules come before broad ones, and that the employee has a manager in their profile.

One doesn't answer on the Approval flow page.
Reload the page and try again. If it persists, contact support.

Too many expenses still reach a person.
Look at which checks give warnings most often. Adjust the rule, or let warnings under a small amount be approved automatically.

FAQ

1. Can I still choose approvers by level, like before?

Yes, in your own words: "first the manager, then finance" is a two-step flow.

2. Do I need Expense checks to automate approvals?

No. You can auto-approve by amount alone. Expense checks make it safer, because only expenses that meet your policy go through.

3. Do checks block an employee from submitting?

No. Checks never block submitting or approving. Your flow decides what happens with the result.

4. What happened to our old approval groups and spending policies?

Approval groups became your approval flow and spending policies became Expense checks, so your rules were kept.

5. One sent expenses with a warning to finance in the SME example. Is that expected?

It can happen: One may also send expenses with a warning to finance, not only those out of policy. Check One's summary before you save, and if that's not what you want, tell One, for example "only send out-of-policy expenses to finance, not warnings".

6. Where are Expense checks and the approval flow in Settings?

Both are in Settings > Expenses: Expense checks under Automations, and Approval flow under Configuration.

7. Which Expense checks should I add for my company size?

• Startup: the ready-made set, plus your one or two real limits, for example "Meals at most £30 per person".
• SME: weekly or monthly limits per category, deadlines (for example 30 days to submit), and itemised invoices with VAT above an amount.
• Multinational: rules for some people only (for example different hotel limits by country), currency checks, and business or first class travel flagged as a warning.

8. What if an expense matches none of my rules?

Say what you want in your first request, for example "send everything else to the employee's manager", as the examples above do, so every expense has a next step. Then check One's summary before you save.