Troubleshooting: Expense Policies Not Applying Correctly

Problem

An expense or claim should be flagged by a configured Expense Policy (e.g., exceeding a meal limit, missing attendees, submitted too late), but:

1. No warning or blocking error appears when saving/validating the expense or submitting the claim.
2. The expense/claim proceeds through the workflow without the expected policy intervention.

Common Causes

1. Policy Not Active: The specific expense policy rule is disabled or not currently active within Zudello's configuration (managed by Zudello staff or potentially future admin UI).
2. Incorrect Policy Configuration:
   • The conditions defined in the policy rule are incorrect (e.g., wrong field checked, incorrect operator, wrong threshold value).
   • The policy targets the wrong Expense Type or applies only under specific circumstances not met by the current expense/claim.
   • The configured outcome (Warning vs. Blocking Error) is not set as expected.
3. Incorrect Expense Data: The data entered on the expense document does not actually meet the criteria for the policy violation (e.g., the amount entered is below the limit, the date is within the allowed period, required fields are actually populated).
4. Timing of Policy Check: The policy check might be configured to run at a specific point (e.g., only on claim submission), and the user expects it to trigger earlier (e.g., when saving the individual expense).
5. Policy Engine Issue (Rare): A temporary issue with the backend service responsible for evaluating expense policies.

Troubleshooting Steps

1. Verify Expense Data:
   • Open the specific expense document.
   • Carefully review all relevant fields (Amount, Date, Expense Type, Attendees, Justification, etc.).
   • Does the data actually violate the policy rule you expect to trigger? (e.g., Is the amount truly over the limit? Is the date outside the allowed range?). Correct any data errors.
2. Confirm Policy Details (Admin/Staff Task):
   • Identify the specific policy rule that should have triggered.
   • Review the policy configuration (via internal tools or future admin UI):
     • Is the policy Active?
     • Are the Conditions (fields, operators, values) defined correctly?
     • Does the policy apply to the correct Expense Type?
     • Is the Outcome (Warning/Block) configured as expected?
3. Check Policy Evaluation Point: Understand when the specific policy is designed to be evaluated (e.g., on expense save, on claim submit). Is the user expecting the check earlier than configured?
4. Test Policy with Clear Violation: Create a new test expense that clearly violates the specific policy rule. Does the policy trigger correctly for the test expense? This helps isolate whether the issue is with the policy configuration or the data on the original expense.
5. Check Zudello Status Page: Visit status.zudello.com for any platform incidents affecting expense processing or policy evaluations.

Need Help?

If expense policies are consistently not applying as expected, contact Zudello support. Provide:

• The Document UUID of the expense/claim where the policy failed to trigger.
• Details of the specific policy rule that should have applied.
• Screenshots of the expense data.
• (If possible) Details or screenshots of the policy configuration.