Overview
With policy rules, Ramp becomes the 24/7 policy enforcer, freeing up admins and managers from time-consuming reviews and automatically flagging transactions with warnings or as out-of-policy on their behalf. All admins must do is enter the criteria under which Ramp automatically flags transactions as out-of-policy or add a label to remind cardholders and reviewers to check for possible out-of-policy spending. Admins can choose which reviewers or cardholders receive email notifications for added visibility.
Ramp analyzes transactions in several ways. All Ramp customers can use merchant restrictions, transaction category restrictions, and transaction amounts to locate out-of-policy transactions. Only Ramp Plus customers can use advanced policy rules such as duplicate receipts, itemized receipts, incorrect receipts, and more.
Jump to:
- How do I set up policy rules as an admin?
- How do policy rules appear on transactions?
- How do I review transactions?
- MCC codes blocked by Ramp
How do I set up Policy Rules as an admin?
- Click Settings in the lower left corner, then go to the Expense policy tab.
- Click the Policy rules button under Spend guidelines.
- Click on one of the suggested policy rules or click the Create rule button to make a custom rule. You can have up to 25 custom rules.
- Excessive Tipping [Ramp Plus] - flag transactions with a tip greater than a certain percentage of the pre-tax amount (from 0%-100% at your discretion)
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Weekend Spend [Ramp Plus] - flag weekend or weekday transactions past Friday 11:59 PM (user local time) to Sunday 11:59 PM (user local time).
- Time is recorded at the time of swipe based on the user’s local time zone. For virtual transactions, local time is based on the timezone at the last recorded login. For physical transactions, Ramp records the local time when the transaction is swiped.
- This rule does not offer the ability to customize times.
- Tip: If your company has recurring SaaS spend that may happen over the weekend, consider adding a rule (+ Add) to exclude specific SaaS vendors.
- Itemized Receipt Required [Ramp Plus] - flag non-itemized receipts for restaurants, general merchandise, supermarkets, alcohol/bars, and lodging transactions.
- Receipt Doesn’t Match Transaction [Ramp Plus] - flag receipts where the receipt doesn't match the transaction based on receipt amount, merchant, and date.
- Receipt Previously Used [Ramp Plus] - flags transaction receipts that have been previously used for a transaction and flags reimbursement receipts that have been previously used for reimbursements.
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Blocked Items [Ramp Plus] - flag blocked categories such as religious contribution, political spending, and tobacco based on the MCC code.
- Please Note: Ramp automatically blocks a few MCC codes, including those from gambling and dating services. See here for the full list of MCC codes.
- Alcohol [Ramp Plus] - Ramp leverages ML to classify the transaction based on receipt line items & the merchant name, e.g. if the line item includes text that indicates alcohol-related items (names, brands, etc.), it will be flagged as alcohol spend.
- Merchant restrictions - flag transactions for specific merchants
- Category restrictions - flag transactions for specific categories
- Select what happens when the rule is broken. Ramp will add a label to the transaction as out-of-policy or with a warning. Out-of-policy transactions will not be auto-approved (requires a reason for approval) whereas transactions with a warning will still be auto-approved (no action required).
- Notifications - choose who to alert via email. This can include the manager, owner, cardholder, or anyone else at the company who may need to be alerted for each out-of-policy or warning flag. Notifications will be sent to each user separately.
Tips for Setup
- Updating or creating a policy rule will affect all future transaction updates (e.g., merchant updates, adding to a trip, attendee splits, and receipt uploads). For example, for a transaction that occurred before the rule was implemented, if a receipt is uploaded, it will still be scanned according to your company’s policy rules and may be flagged as out-of-policy.
- Note: We only allow merchants that the business has already seen for policy rules due to technical limitations.
- By default, each rule applies across the company. If you would like some rules to only apply to certain departments or merchants, you may click “+ Add” beneath the initial configuration and add another statement. The two statements will both apply in the rule (AND function).
- Note: At this time, Ramp does not support creating rules for specific cards or spend programs.
- Depending on the volume of transactions and out-of-policy transactions your company usually sees, the higher the volume, the more the alerts. Please be mindful when setting up email notifications.
How do policy rules appear on transactions?
A transaction can have any number of flags from the policy rules. These flags appear in the Summary section at the top of the transaction drawer on the web and mobile app. Depending on the rule, flags may appear 15-30 seconds after the transaction goes through (e.g., weekend spend) or when the receipt is uploaded (e.g., itemized receipts, previously used receipts).
If multiple receipts are uploaded, only one receipt needs to meet the requirements. If a new receipt is uploaded and in policy, the out-of-policy or warning flag will be resolved. If a new receipt is not uploaded and the transaction is approved, the out-of-policy flag or warning will remain.
Different actions will appear in the footer for out-of-policy transactions depending on whether they are the cardholder or reviewer; Ramp will display two or three actions at a time. The footer actions will not change for transactions flagged with warnings.
- Cardholders will typically see these action items in the footer depending on the transaction lifecycle: Change Limit, Add to Trip, or Repay.
- The overflow menu may include items such as Request Exception, Edit Attendees for meals, Report Incorrect Info, or Dispute a Transaction.
- Cardholders will only see the Change Limit option if an admin has not synced the transaction. Once the transaction has been synced, the Change Limit is disabled.
- Reviewers will typically see these action items in the footer: Flag Transaction, Approve, or Request Repayment. If you have the role permission to sync to accounting, you may see a Mark as Ready button.
- The overflow menu may include action items such as Add to Trip, Reassign Transaction, Report Incorrect Info, or Dispute Transaction
How do I review transactions?
Review transactions on the Inbox > Transactions, the Expenses > Transactions > Needs review, or Expenses > Transactions > Out of policy tabs. Please see the Transaction reviews article for more information.
In the tables, hover over the Resolution column to see what each action means. Hover over the Policy information column to reveal longer lists of policies applied.
Once the out-of-policy or warning is resolved, the warning or out-of-policy label will be removed.
MCC codes blocked by Ramp
Ramp automatically declines transactions in the following categories:
- 4829 - Money transfer
- 5966 - Direct marketing/outbound telemarketing merchant
- 6010 – Financial Institutions – Manual Cash Disbursements
- 6011 – Financial Institutions – Automated Cash Disbursements
- 6051 – Non-Financial Institutions – Foreign Currency, Non-Fiat Currency (for example Cryptocurrency), Money Orders (Not Money Transfer), Account Funding (not Stored Value Load), Travelers Cheques, and Debt Repayment
- 6211 – Security brokers/dealers
- 7273 – Dating services
- 7800 – Government-Owned Lotteries (US Region only)
- 7801 – Government Licensed On-Line Casinos (On-Line Gambling) (US Region only)
- 7802 – Government-Licensed Horse/Dog Racing (US Region only)
- 7995 – Betting (lottery tickets, casino gaming chips, off-track better, wagers at race tracks, and games of chance to win prizes of monetary value)
- 9754 – Mastercard: Gambling-Horse, Dog Racing, State Lottery.