Even the most thoughtful expense policy can’t anticipate every situation an employee will encounter. A surge-priced ride from the airport, a co-working day pass, a seat upgrade, or an unexpected change of plans can quickly turn a straightforward expense into a judgment call.
Those judgment calls are becoming a more familiar part of managing travel and expense. The way we work and travel continues to change, creating spending categories and circumstances that traditional policies may not have been designed to address.
It can be tempting to respond by writing a rule for every possible scenario, but there will always be another expense that doesn’t fit neatly into an existing category. Instead, finance teams should focus on giving people the information and guidance needed to make good decisions when the unexpected happens.
Provide a Framework for Good Judgment
Challenges can arise when policies leave room for interpretation. One manager may approve an expense while another rejects something similar. Employees may be unsure what’s acceptable, and finance teams can find themselves repeatedly stepping in to review the context and decide. At scale, those individual exceptions can add manual work and make it harder to apply policies consistently.
These challenges can be compounded when employees and those managing travel aren’t on the same page. According to the 2026 SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey, 35% of business travelers believe there has been no change in their company’s approach to travel, even though 90% of travel managers report that their organization’s approach has either tightened or loosened.
Organizations should give employees and approvers a clear framework for making decisions. Was there a legitimate business need? Was the cost reasonable given the circumstances? Were employee safety or accessibility considerations involved? Were practical alternatives available? Is this a one-time exception or part of a recurring pattern?
An expense that looks unusual on its own may make sense when you understand the circumstances involved. The lowest-cost option, for example, isn’t always the most practical or cost-effective one.
Bring Guidance into the Process
Technology can play a role, particularly when policies, expense data, and approvals might otherwise sit across disconnected systems or processes.
Building policy checks and guidance into expense workflows can help employees understand expectations and give approvers more context when an exception occurs. Automation can also help finance teams identify potential issues and recurring patterns, reducing the need to manually scrutinize every transaction. The goal is to help people make those judgment calls more consistently, not remove human judgment from the process entirely.
AI-powered auditing puts that approach into practice by reviewing expense reports for potential compliance issues and helping finance teams focus their attention where it’s needed most. For example, Concur Verify, SAP Concur’s AI-powered auditing solution, supports English and 89 non-English-languages allowing automatic 100% audit of expense reports in nearly any language. That kind of efficiency can give finance teams more capacity to focus on the exceptions and judgment calls that require human context.
Clear communication is an important part of the equation, too. Employees should understand what a policy is trying to accomplish—not just what it prohibits. Giving people guidance before they travel or spend can help reduce uncertainty before it reaches an approver’s queue.
Let Exceptions Inform the Policy
Individual exceptions can also tell finance leaders something useful. For example, if teams repeatedly see the same questions around co-working spaces, premium transportation, food delivery fees, EV charging, or other evolving categories of spend, that can be a signal that the policy or employee guidance needs to evolve as well.
That’s where better visibility becomes particularly valuable. Instead of treating every gray-area expense as an isolated decision, finance teams can look across spending patterns to understand where employees need clearer guidance and where policies may no longer reflect how people actually work and travel.
Build a Better Approach
Gray areas aren’t going away, and the goal shouldn’t be to eliminate them entirely.
A strong expense program gives employees clear expectations, managers the context to make informed and consistent decisions, and finance teams visibility into where exceptions are occurring. That balance can reduce friction while maintaining the controls organizations need.
Ultimately, a good expense policy isn’t about having a rule for everything. It’s about giving people what they need to make better decisions when there isn’t one.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Fiona Ashley is VP of product marketing at SAP Concur.
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