Control Employee Spending Effectively with These 6 Strategies
In risk management, there’s a framework known as the 10–80–10 rule: 10% of people will always follow the rules, 10% will break them if given the chance, and the remaining 80% fall somewhere in between. Managing employee spending isn’t just about policing the bad actors; it’s about putting guardrails in place so the majority never have the opportunity to make a costly mistake. In practice, that starts with laying down some ground rules.
Your company may already have an expense policy. Maybe it’s a detailed document with department-specific rules and formal reimbursement workflows, or it might be a handful of informal guidelines that your team follows loosely. Either way, policy alone isn’t enough without enforcement.
With the Slash Visa® Platinum Card, finance teams can translate expense policy into action.¹ Corporate cards earn up to 2% cash back while supporting granular spend controls that can prevent maverick spending before it happens. Set spending rules by individual, team, or category; adjust card limits to prevent overspending; and improve visibility over all your company’s finances with real-time analytics, alerts, and AI-powered monitoring. Read on to learn how Slash helps businesses enforce spending policies consistently as they scale.
What is employee expense management, and why does it matter?
Employee expense management refers to the processes companies use to track, control, and approve work-related spending.
The first step is establishing a company expense policy. These guidelines should be documented in a format that’s easy to share during onboarding and simple to reference later. A practical expense policy typically addresses the following areas:
- Management expectations: Explain why spending rules exist and how they’ll be enforced. Clear context can help employees understand the rationale behind controls and reduce confusion around enforcement.
- Employee spending limits: If employees use company cards or submit business expenses for reimbursement, define how much they’re allowed to spend before reaching a limit. Limits may be set daily or weekly through per diem allowances or card controls, with different thresholds based on role, team, or department.
- Travel and expense policies: Travel is often one of the largest discretionary expense categories. Establish T&E guidelines that balance cost discipline with the flexibility employees need to attend client meetings, conferences, and other company-related events.
- Reimbursement and approval channels: Some company purchases may require specialized approval. Designate an approver (such as a finance lead or executive) to review and authorize larger or higher-risk expenses. This is especially important for procurement workflows or reimbursement channels that rely on receipt submissions.
An expense policy sets the boundaries for how company money should be used, but its impact extends beyond documentation or approvals. The way spending is managed directly affects cash flow predictability, compliance exposure, and how confidently employees make everyday purchasing decisions. Slash makes this easy, building in expense management tools with your all-in-one banking, expense tracking, treasury, and global payment platform.⁶
Below are some of the downstream outcomes that can follow from a well-designed expense management process:
Improved cost control
An expense management system allows companies to manage spending proactively instead of addressing issues after transactions occur. Spending limits can be aligned with current cash needs, purchases can be restricted to approved categories, and transaction-level visibility helps ensure company funds are used appropriately. This makes it easier to stay within budget and maintain compliance when paying for goods or services.
Increased operational efficiency
Automation removes much of the manual coordination involved in enforcing an expense policy. Finance teams can define spending rules and approval workflows in advance, allowing routine business expenses to proceed without manual review. Out-of-policy transactions are flagged or blocked automatically, reducing the time spent on receipt checks and follow-ups while preserving proper oversight.
Build trust and company culture
Addressing out-of-policy spending after it occurs can create unnecessary tension. Clear guidelines, paired with consistent systems, set shared expectations across the organization and reduce guesswork around decision-making. When employees understand the boundaries and trust that rules are applied evenly, expense management can contribute to a healthier company culture.
How to control employee spending: 6 strategies for success
Documenting company policies is an important first step, but written rules alone can only go so far. Once expectations are set, businesses need systems that apply those rules consistently in everyday spending decisions. The strategies below focus on turning expense policies into practical controls that work at scale:
Set and enforce budgets
Creating a budget requires balance. Spending should be conservative enough to protect cash flow, but flexible enough to support growth. Tracking recurring inflows and outflows, evaluating liquidity, and managing accounts payable and receivable can all contribute to more accurate budgeting. Tools like Slash’s analytics dashboard help surface spending trends across accounts, payments, company cards, and treasury activity, which can make it easier to spot patterns that contribute to overspending.
Limit purchases to approved vendors
Restricting spending to a shortlist of approved vendors can reduce fraud risk and simplify oversight. Employees with payment access may route funds to unverified or inappropriate recipients, whether intentionally or by mistake. Slash allows finance teams to route outgoing payments through predefined approval paths, ensuring vendor payments are reviewed, validated, and consistent with company policies before they’re sent.
Issue corporate cards with built-in spend controls
Modern corporate cards enable finance teams to predefine spending rules that align with the company policies. With the Slash Card, rules can be configured by spend category, merchant type, transaction amount, or employee role, helping ensure card usage stays aligned with approved uses. Plus, you won't need to reimburse employees by tracking down paper receipts; your team can have direct access to company funds, with controls that prevent overspending.
Implement real-time monitoring
Many credit cards offer basic fraud alerts, but those alerts often operate in isolation from the rest of a company’s financial activity. Real-time monitoring is more effective when card spend, ACH transfers, wires, and other payment types are visible in one place. Slash centralizes remittances and card transactions in a single dashboard, giving finance teams immediate insight into spending activity as it happens with notification controls.
Use reporting insights to adjust controls over time
As headcount grows and revenue increases, spending patterns change. Regular expense reporting helps finance teams identify where policies may need to be tightened, expanded, or rebalanced. Reports such as profit and loss statements, category-level expense summaries, and vendor spend analyses provide the context needed to refine controls. With Slash’s QuickBooks integration, expense data flows directly into your accounting system, reducing manual data entry which can keep reports accurate.
Review and audit spending regularly
Periodic reviews help confirm that controls are working as intended and that policies remain aligned with business needs. Internal audits can uncover recurring exceptions, outdated approval rules, or spending categories that require closer oversight. With Slash, the documentation needed for internal review is automatically captured and centralized, including receipts, B2B transaction details, invoices, and expense data that syncs into QuickBooks for formal reporting.
The standard in finance
Slash goes above with better controls, better rewards, and better support for your business.
Control out-of-policy spending before it happens with Slash
The 10–80–10 rule explains why written policies and good intentions alone aren’t enough to manage employee spending. Even well-meaning employees in the middle 80% can make off-policy purchases when systems rely on manual review or after-the-fact enforcement.
With Slash, spending controls are applied at the point of transaction, which means 100% of company spend flows through the same set of rules, approvals, and visibility. Instead of reacting to exceptions, finance teams decide upfront what is allowed and let the system enforce it consistently.
By putting cards and payment activity into a single dashboard, Slash makes it easier to enforce policies without adding to your workload. Finance teams can route outgoing payments through predefined approval paths, apply granular spend controls on corporate cards, and keep transaction documentation organized for review. When it’s time to close the books, Slash’s QuickBooks integration lets you export expense data without manual entry, so reporting and audit preparation can be done more accurately and efficiently.
Slash does more than monitor business expenses. Below are several additional capabilities that support everyday financial operations:
- Dynamic payment methods: Access to global ACH settlement, wire transfers to 180+ countries, and domestic real-time payment rails.
- Native cryptocurrency support: Send and receive stablecoins across eight supported blockchains to settle payments in minutes and reduce bank processing costs.⁴ On- and off-ramps for USDC, USDT, and USDSL with conversion fees under 1%.
- High-yield treasury accounts: Earn up to 3.87% annualized yield on idle funds through Morgan Stanley or BlackRock money market funds backed by U.S. Treasuries.
- Slash Visa® Platinum Card: Issue unlimited virtual cards, organize cards by team, set individual spending limits, and restrict unapproved categories while earning up to 2% cash back.
- Global USD Account: Allows foreign business owners to access Slash’s payment and crypto rails without forming a U.S.-registered LLC, enabling USD payments worldwide.³
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Frequently asked questions
How do you record employee benefits expenses?
Employee benefits expenses are typically recorded as operating expenses in the appropriate category, such as payroll, insurance, or employee benefits, based on the type of benefit provided. These costs are tracked through payroll, human resources, or accounting software to ensure accurate reporting and compliance.
Expense Reports: How to Track, Manage, and Simplify Costs
How do you audit employee expenses?
Auditing employee expenses involves reviewing transactions against company policies, verifying supporting documentation like receipts or invoices, and identifying patterns or exceptions that require follow-up.
Expense Reports: How to Track, Manage, and Simplify Costs
How often should employee expenses be reviewed?
Expense reviews can be conducted on a weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis, depending on company size and spending volume. Implementing an expense management software like Slash that monitors expenses in real time can help catch issues early and adjust controls as spending patterns change.
