Establish Audit Rules for Emburse Assurance for Emburse Professional

For organizations using Emburse Assurance for Emburse Professional, administrators can configure audit rules to identify and flag expenses based on company policy.

These rules help surface potential violations during the expense submission approval process.

Use the Emburse Assurance Audit Rules page to:

  • Control how expenses are flagged
  • Define which rules apply to your organization
  • Manage how users are notified of potential issues

Prerequisites

You can configure audit rules only if:

  • You are signed in as an Administrator.
  • Emburse Assurance is enabled for your organization

Emburse Assurance for Emburse Professional audit rules is an add-on capability. If Emburse Assurance is not enabled for your organization, contact your Emburse representative to add it to your organization.

Configure an Audit Rule

  1. On your Emburse Professional homepage, select the gear icon.
Emburse Professional homepage with the gear icon highlighted
  1. Under Audit, select Emburse Assurance Audit Rules.
Emburse Assurance Audit Rules page showing Inquiry Settings
  1. In Inquiry Settings, choose whether to turn on Auto-Inquiry Mode.
When enabled, an inquiry will be automatically sent to the submitter if an expense is flagged by an audit rule. Inquiries allow approvers to send requests for information to submitters in the approval workflow. This will prompt the user to add further context and explain why their expense was flagged. This information will be visible to Approvers and Auditors when the report is opened for approval. Please Note: Inquiries will only be sent if the Assurance rule is configured as a Post Submission alert.
  1. If you turned on Auto-Inquiry Mode, toggle Allow expense edit for automatically created inquiries if you want to allow submitters to edit expenses during the Inquiry.

Do Not Allow: A notification is sent to the submitter, but they cannot edit the expense that generated the audit alert. However, they still need to answer the Inquiry.

Allow: A notification is sent to the submitter, and they can edit the expense so that it falls into company policy

  1. Next, under Detection Rules, choose which audit checks to enable for your organization. Locate the rule you want to configure and select the pencil icon for more details.
Detection Rules section with the pencil controls highlighted
  1. Toggle the Enabled checkbox to enable the rule.
  2. Select the Rule Visibility. Choosing Proactive Alert on Mobile or Prior to Expense Submission will alert the submitter to the violation prior to expense report submission. Please note: Rule Visibility options are only available for select rules. If Rule Visibility is not listed, the audit rule will default to a Post Submission alert.
  1. (Optional) Add a Custom Violation Message.
Best Practice: The Custom Violation Message appears to Approvers, Auditors, and sometimes Submitters (depending on configuration) when an expense is flagged. Use this message to guide users on expected changes or actions explaining why the rule triggers.
  1. Select the Expense Types and User Roles which apply to this audit rule:
  • Expense Types: Choose which Expense Types apply to this rule. Every Expense Category created under the Expense Type will be scanned by the selected audit rule.
    • If you need to exclude a category or multiple categories, you can create an Exception for it below.
  • User Roles: Choose any or all of the four standard user roles to which the rule applies. For example, you can configure the Alcohol Purchase rule to ignore any expenses submitted by Executives.
    • If you need to exclude a specific user from the rule, you can create an Exception below.
  1. Select Save to save your changes and enable the rule.
Rule Details panel showing save action for the configured rule

Add Exceptions to Existing Rules

  1. To add exceptions to a rule, reopen the rule and go to Exceptions.
  2. Select a type of exception. You can create an exception by Employee, Expense Category, or Department. 
Rule Details panel showing the Exceptions area
  1. Configure your exceptions based on the available options.
  2. Select the values which should not apply to the audit rule.
  3. Select Add.
Exception type options in the Rule Details panel

The exception displays in the Rule Details.

Rule Details panel showing the added exception
  1. Click the Back button and then click Save.
  2. Return to the Audit Rules page and confirm the rules you enabled show as ON.
Audit Rules page showing a rule turned on

 

Detection Rules Reference

Use this reference to review each audit rule, its purpose, and any configurable parameters.

Scan the table to find the rule you need, then open it in your Emburse Assurance Audit Rules page to enable and tailor settings. Availability and options can vary by rule and by your organization’s configuration.

AI Audit Checks

AI Audit Checks list on the Emburse Assurance Audit Rules page
Rule Description Parameters Proactive Alert on Mobile Pre-Submission Feedback
Alcohol Purchase Emburse AI will identify if alcohol is present on meal receipts. None Yes  
Altered or Illegitimate Receipt Emburse AI will detect forged, altered, or AI-generated receipts using image forensics and LLM analysis. If a receipt is determined to be fake or illegitimate, the associated expense will be flagged. None  
Illegitimate Vendor Emburse AI will validate the merchant name and location using web search and inference. Suspicious, fake, or unverified vendors will be flagged for review. None  
Unusual Amount or Price Anomaly Emburse AI will flag expenses significantly above (or abnormally below) expected prices based on the merchant and the location of spend using an LLM web search. None  
Non-Itemized Receipt Emburse AI will flag any meal receipt which is not itemized. None Yes Yes
Receipt Discrepancy Emburse AI will scan the receipt image and flag the expense line if the date, amount, or currency from the receipt image does not match the date, amount, or currency of the expense submitted. None    

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