# Finance Expense Policy Triage

> Triages expense claims against a supplied expense policy using a fixed disposition table, separates a policy breach from a tax or evidence problem, and escalates bribery, conflict-of-interest and fraud indicators out of the finance queue instead of deciding them. Refuses to rule on a claim when the policy text, the receipt evidence or the business purpose was not supplied. Use when reviewing a claim or a batch of claims, when a claimant disputes a rejection, when writing a rejection that must stand up, or when deciding whether a spend pattern needs escalation. Trigger on 'expense claim', 'is this claimable', 'expense policy', 'reject this claim', 'entertainment expense', 'gifts and hospitality', 'per diem', 'out of policy'. Not for explaining a cost-centre budget overrun (use finance-budget-vs-actual-commentary) or for month-end reconciliation (use finance-month-end-variance-analysis).

- Skill: `alihusains/finance-expense-policy-triage` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add alihusains/finance-expense-policy-triage`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/alihusains/finance-expense-policy-triage/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Finance & Business
- Author: alihusains (https://skillmd.com/u/alihusains)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/alihusains/finance-expense-policy-triage

---


## Purpose

Expense triage goes wrong when three different questions get collapsed into one:
is it within policy, is it supported by evidence, and is it deductible or taxable.
They have different owners and different answers. This skill separates them, gives
a single disposition per claim, and pulls integrity indicators out of the finance
queue where they do not belong.

## Data classification

**Confidential.** Claims contain an identified employee's movements, meals,
associates and sometimes health-related travel. Handle as personal data; restrict
to the approvals chain.

**STOP CONDITIONS:**

| Trigger | Action |
| --- | --- |
| Full or partial card numbers, PAN, CVV, bank account or IBAN details in a pasted receipt | Stop. Say which category was seen, never repeat the value. Ask for a redacted receipt. Do not store or restate it. |
| Health, religious, or trade-union information inferable from the claim (medical travel, dietary or religious detail, union event) | Stop the automated line of reasoning. Do not comment on it. Route to a named approver handling it under a restricted process. |
| Suspected fraud: duplicated receipts, altered totals, claims for a period of absence, round-sum patterns without support | Stop triage. Do not confront, do not notify the claimant, do not annotate the claim with an accusation. Escalate to the route the organisation defines for suspected fraud. |
| Payment, gift or hospitality involving a public official, a regulator, or anything that could look like inducement | Stop. This is an anti-bribery matter, not an expense decision. Escalate to compliance. |
| The claim relates to a legal dispute, settlement, or investigation | Stop. May be privileged. Route to legal. |

**NON-FABRICATION RULE.** Never assume a limit, a per-diem rate, an approval
threshold or a mileage rate that the policy did not state, and never import one
from another organisation or another jurisdiction. Never infer a business purpose
from the merchant name, the day of the week, or the claimant's role. If the policy
clause is not supplied, the output is `POLICY CLAUSE NOT SUPPLIED — cannot rule`.
A rejection quoting an invented rule collapses the first time the claimant asks to
see it.

## Prerequisites

- **Inputs (mandatory):** the expense policy text, or at minimum the clause
  governing the category in question; the claim lines with date, merchant,
  category, amount and currency; the stated business purpose.
- **Inputs (mandatory for evidence tests):** the receipt or its absence, and for
  entertainment, the attendee list and their affiliation.
- **Inputs (jurisdiction-dependent):** which jurisdiction employs the claimant and
  where the spend occurred. Ask. Deductibility, VAT/GST recovery, per-diem
  treatment and taxable-benefit rules are jurisdiction-specific and this skill
  must not assume one.
- **Access:** none required.

If the policy text is absent, stop. Triage without the rule is opinion.

## Procedure

### 1. Split the three questions

Every claim is assessed against all three; they can disagree, and that is normal.

| Question | Owner | Failure means |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Policy: is this category, amount and approval permitted? | Finance / line manager | Out of policy |
| Evidence: is there sufficient support for the amount and purpose? | Finance | Unsupported |
| Tax: is it deductible, VAT-recoverable, or a taxable benefit? | Tax function, per jurisdiction | A tax treatment question, not a rejection |

A compliant claim with a missing receipt is an evidence problem. A supported claim
over the limit is a policy problem. Never merge them into one rejection reason —
the claimant cannot fix an undifferentiated "rejected".

### 2. Apply the disposition table

| Policy | Evidence | Disposition |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Within | Complete | Approve |
| Within | Missing receipt below the policy's no-receipt threshold, purpose stated | Approve with the exception noted |
| Within | Missing receipt above threshold | Return for evidence; do not reject |
| Within | Purpose absent | Return for business purpose |
| Outside — amount over limit | Complete | Approve to the limit, reject the excess, or route to the exception approver named in the policy. Never approve silently. |
| Outside — prohibited category | Any | Reject, quoting the clause verbatim |
| Outside — approval not obtained in advance where required | Complete | Route to retrospective approval per policy; if the policy has no retrospective route, reject |
| Unclear whether in policy | Any | Escalate to the policy owner. Do not resolve ambiguity against the claimant by default |
| Any | Evidence appears altered or duplicated | Stop — fraud route, not triage |

### 3. Apply the heightened-scrutiny categories

These carry exposure beyond the claim amount and always need the extra field:

| Category | Extra requirement |
| --- | --- |
| Client entertainment | Attendee names and organisations; business purpose; check against gifts/hospitality limits |
| Gifts given or received | Register entry; value; recipient; check the anti-bribery threshold |
| Anything involving a public official | Escalate to compliance regardless of value |
| Travel with a personal element | Apportionment basis stated |
| Cash and cash-equivalents | Support beyond the claimant's own statement |
| Charitable or political donations | Approval per the policy's specific route; political donations are separately restricted in many jurisdictions — ask |
| Home-office and equipment | Ownership and return terms; often a taxable benefit — flag to tax |
| Alcohol | Many policies restrict or cap this separately; check the clause rather than the general meal limit |

### 4. Detect patterns, not just claims

Across a batch, flag: repeated claims just under an approval threshold; the same
merchant and amount recurring; claims dated to periods of leave; sequential
receipt numbers from one merchant across separate claims; a single approver
approving their own chain. Report the pattern to the escalation route — do not
build a case, and do not annotate the individual claims.

### 5. Write the disposition

Per claim: **decision · the reason class (policy / evidence / tax / escalation) ·
the clause quoted verbatim · what the claimant must do next.** Rejections that do
not quote a clause get reversed on appeal and cost more than the claim.

## Boundaries

- **Not for** giving tax advice or determining deductibility, VAT recovery or
  benefit-in-kind treatment. Flag the question and route to the tax function for
  the relevant jurisdiction.
- **Not for** investigating suspected fraud. Detect, escalate, stop.
- **Not for** explaining a cost-centre overrun — that is
  `finance-budget-vs-actual-commentary`.
- **Not for** writing or amending the expense policy itself — that is
  `legal-compliance-policy-drafting`.

## Hand-offs

- Receives from: the claims queue, or from `finance-budget-vs-actual-commentary`
  when a variance traces to claim behaviour.
- Routes to: `legal-compliance-policy-drafting` when repeated ambiguity shows the
  policy clause itself is defective.
- Routes to: the internal audit / assurance function (outside this skill set)
  when claims are requested as audit or investigation evidence.
- Escalates to: compliance for bribery and hospitality indicators; to the fraud
  route for evidence integrity; to tax for treatment questions.