The task
Most expense claims are ordinary and a few need a conversation. Configure an agent to read each claim and its receipts, compare them with the written policy and return only the claims that need a decision, each one citing the rule and the receipt it came from. Approvers stop reading every line and start reading the exceptions.
What you provide
Expense claim
Claim EXP-3391 covers a two-night trip: one hotel night at $260, two taxi rides and one team dinner for four people.
Receipts
The attached receipts, including photographed ones. Poor scans and missing attachments should be reported rather than assumed.
The written policy
Your current travel and expense policy, with the limits, the categories that need itemization and the approval thresholds.
Give the agent a clear brief
Use these instructions as a starting point, alongside your approved sources and permissions.
Read each claim line and the receipt that supports it. Compare the amount, date, category and attendee count against the supplied policy. Cite the policy clause and the receipt for every flag. Report a missing or unreadable receipt as its own category, separate from a policy breach. Return only the lines that need a decision, with the reason. Do not approve claims, reject claims or release reimbursements.
How the work comes together
Read the claim and its evidence
Extract each line with its date, amount, currency and category, and associate it with the receipt that supports it. Keep the page reference. If a receipt is unreadable or absent, record that instead of inferring the amount.
Compare against the policy
Apply the supplied limits and category rules. A nightly cap, a per-head entertainment limit and an itemization requirement are all different tests, and each flag names the clause it came from.
Return the decisions worth making
Write the flagged lines into a table with the rule, the evidence and the amount concerned. The approver sees why the line surfaced without rereading the whole claim.
Illustrative example · fictional data
Three lines, one real question
An illustrative claim reviewed against a policy with a $220 nightly hotel cap and a $50 per-head meal limit. The figures are fictional.
| Claim line | Policy position | For the approver |
|---|---|---|
| Hotel, 1 night, $260 | Nightly cap $220 · Policy §4.1 | $40 above the cap |
| Team dinner, $184, 4 attendees | $46 per head · Policy §5.2 | Within the limit |
| Taxi, $38 | Receipt not attached | Evidence needed before approval |
The hotel line is a question for the approver, not a rejection. A pre-approved rate or a conference venue may explain it, and the agent has no way to know that.
The human review
An approver decides each flagged line. Payment, rejection and any exception approval stay inside your existing expense system and delegation of authority.
Set it up for your team
Supply the policy as text
Provide the current policy with its clause numbering, the limits by country or grade where they differ, and the date the version took effect.
Connect the claims and receipts
Start with an exported batch of claims and their attachments. Reading directly from an expense system needs a supported integration or a configured API connection with appropriate permissions.
Decide what counts as a flag
Agree which findings interrupt an approver and which are recorded quietly. Flagging everything returns you to reading every line.
Check the result before scaling
Use a reviewed batch that contains clean claims, genuine breaches, pre-approved exceptions and unreadable receipts. Measure missed breaches, false flags and approver time against your current process before claiming an improvement.
Keep the data in the right place
Expense claims carry employee travel patterns, home addresses and card details. A fully local deployment can keep the documents and the inference inside your network. A hosted model or a connected expense system needs its own explicit data-access decision.
Explore deployment optionsQuestions & answers
Can the agent approve a claim that is within policy?
No. This playbook prepares a review queue. Approval, rejection and reimbursement stay in your expense system under your existing delegation of authority.
What happens when a receipt is missing?
It is reported as missing evidence, which is a different finding from a policy breach. The agent does not estimate the amount or assume the expense was legitimate.
Can it handle claims in several currencies?
It can read the currency on each line, but conversion needs your own supplied rates and rules. Test the result on real claims before relying on converted totals.