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Employee profiles and policies

In short​

An Employee Profile is a configuration template applied to a group of employees. It controls which expense categories they see, spending limits per category, and which Approval Policy governs each expense type. Profiles are the bridge between individual employees and the approval and category rules you've defined.

Why it matters​

Without profiles, every employee sees every category and every expense routes through the same default approver. Profiles let you apply different rules to different groups (field staff vs management, contractors vs permanent employees) without configuring each person individually.

How it works​

The connection chain​

Employee Card
    └── Employee Profile (e.g. MANAGEMENT)
            ├── Category: MEALS
            │       ├── Approval Policy: STANDARD
            │       ├── Allowed Amount Per Person: £100
            │       └── Hide: false
            ├── Category: ENTERTAINMENT
            │       ├── Approval Policy: MANAGEMENT-ENT
            │       ├── Allowed Amount Per Person: £500
            │       └── Hide: false
            └── Category: TRAINING
                    └── Hide: true  (not available to this profile)

What a profile controls​

Visible categories - enabling Hide on a category removes it from the employee's view in the app and portal. Employees on this profile cannot submit expenses under hidden categories.

Approval Policy per category - different expense types can follow different approval workflows for the same employee. A manager's travel expenses might auto-approve while their entertainment expenses need CFO sign-off.

Spending limits - two separate caps:

  • Allowed Amount Per Person - the per-person share of an expense. If Jane submits a £300 dinner for 3 guests (£100/person) and the limit is £80/person, the approver is notified. The expense is not blocked - only flagged.
  • Reimbursement Cap Per Expense - the maximum that will be reimbursed regardless of what was spent. Amounts over this cap are not reimbursed.

Auto-approval by transaction type - the Approve Immediately Upon Submission setting bypasses the approval queue entirely for selected transaction types (Expense, Expense Report, Mileage, Per Diem). Use for profiles where no manual review is required.

Default Approval Policies - at the bottom of the profile, you can assign default policies for Mileage, Per Diem, and Expense Reports - separately from the category-level policies for regular expenses.

Assigning a profile to an employee​

Set the Employee Profile field on the Business Central Employee Card (in the Expense Management section). A default profile can be configured in Basic Setup to pre-populate new employee cards.