We've all been there: month-end close is two days away, yet you're still chasing receipts and decoding card statements. You're not alone. Lots of business owners struggle with real-time visibility into company spending and often traditional expense reports catch issues only after cash has already left the account.
You can control employee spending by drafting a clear employee expense policy, building streamlined spend processes, and setting category budgets and approval thresholds. You can also provide the right payment methods and automate receipt capture to ensure your employees follow best practices.
It sounds complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. Modern banking platforms have tools that can automate most of the work. In this article, we'll share our 9-step guide to transforming spending oversight into an automated system that gives you control without sacrificing momentum.
What Is Employee Spend Control And Why Does It Matter?
Employee spend control involves establishing rules that enforce themselves automatically. This can include card limits, separate accounts for each budget, and instant approvals for routine purchases. The system also handles compliance, so you don't have to chase receipts.
With spend control, teams save hours on manual reconciliations, unauthorized purchases become nearly impossible, and cash flow stays visible in real-time.
Businesses of all sizes and across industries benefit from this level of visibility and control, but unfortunately, many SMBs and scaling businesses are still stuck in spreadsheet chaos.
Fortunately, modern banking platforms like Relay offer automatic spend controls that integrate directly into your accounts, eliminating the need for additional software.
Relay is a financial technology company and is not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Thread Bank, Member FDIC. FDIC deposit insurance covers the failure of an insured bank. Certain conditions must be satisfied for pass-through deposit insurance coverage to apply.
How To Know If You Need Better Employee Spending Controls
Does month end still feel like detective work? Here’s how to know if better employee spending controls might help.
Ask yourself:
Is one shared company card still floating between desks?
Are receipts arriving days late, demanding manual data entry?
Do surprise charges surface after the books are closed?
Do your expense reports still live in spreadsheets or email threads?
If the answer to one or more of these is "yes," you're ready for systematic change.
How to Control Employee Spending In 9 Steps
According to the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), annual expense workflows consume up to 3,000 hours annually for businesses worldwide, overwhelming businesses with paperwork when they could be focusing on growth.
Instead, follow this nine-step guide to put spending controls on autopilot.
1. Draft a Crystal-Clear Employee Expense Policy
In Center’s 2023 Expense Management Survey, about one-third of finance leaders report that employees don't fully understand the current expense rules, resulting in frequent exceptions and workarounds.
A clear policy fixes that immediately. In one page, spell out who can spend and how much, which categories are fair game (travel, software, client meals) and what proof you need. When each line item gets specific ("reasonable airfare" becomes "economy up to $600"), you eliminate guesswork.
Once you have a clear policy, modern banking platforms can turn that document into living code. Card limits, category blocks, and automatic receipt reminders enforce the rules the moment a card is swiped, eliminating the need for spreadsheet policing.
2. Build Streamlined Spend Processes with Automated Workflows
An automated flow saves time for everyone. Once you set up rules around who can approve what amounts, which categories can auto-approve under your threshold, and when the system should flag something for review, your role shifts from chasing down documentation to setting the proper boundaries. For example, suppose an employee submits a purchase request through your spend platform. In that case, the system can automatically check it against your policy, and (if approved) create a virtual card with the exact limit and restrictions needed. Their manager gets a simple notification to approve or deny, the receipt gets captured at checkout, and the transaction appears in QuickBooks Online already categorized.
Now, approvals happen within 24 hours, expenses stop surprising you, and your month-end close doesn't require a forensic accounting degree.
3. Set Category Budgets And Approval Thresholds
Dig into last year's spending data and sort it by category. Your credit card statements and vendor payments tell the real story when it comes to spending. Give each category a ceiling that feels realistic but disciplined and, when in doubt, cut 10% from last year's average and start there.
You want approval thresholds to create flow, not bottlenecks. A $200 office supply run should auto-approve, while travel over $1,000 should route to a manager first. Platforms like Relay let you pair smart limits with real-time alerts, and you'll close the visibility gap most businesses face without becoming the spending police.
4. Give Your Team Control With Physical And Virtual Cards
Physical debit cards are ideal for travel and field teams, but virtual cards are particularly useful for online purchases, as you can create them in seconds. Choose a platform that offers both for maximum flexibility.
Smart card platforms let you set per-card limits, block risky merchant categories, and create one-time cards for single vendors. With Relay, you can issue up to 50 cards, cap daily spend, and freeze a card instantly from your phone .
Virtual cards also act as a built-in backup. When a physical card gets lost on the road, you can text a virtual replacement to your employee in minutes.
If you want to ditch the company card altogether, simply migrate one team at a time: issue personal limits, mirror the old card's settings, then retire the plastic once statements show zero swipes.
The Relay Visa Debit® Card is issued by Thread Bank, Member FDIC, pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc and may be used anywhere Visa credit cards are accepted.
5. Automate Receipt Capture And Recordkeeping
Finance teams lose hours every week shuffling receipts and spreadsheets. Transaction-triggered capture fixes this. When an employee snaps a photo of a receipt, AI pulls the date, vendor and amount, and the receipt gets filed instantly.
Relay integrates this entire workflow into your banking dashboard, providing instant SMS reminders, digital receipt storage, and OCR that tags every purchase, allowing it to sync directly into QuickBooks Online or Xero. This has downstream benefits too, just in case the IRS comes knocking.
6. Centralise Subscription And SaaS Monitoring
Unused software is the stealth tax on growing businesses. Without clear visibility into recurring charges, forgotten subscriptions quietly drain cash each month—often for tools nobody even remembers signing up for.
Here’s how to set up centralised subscription and SaaS monitoring:
Start with a simple audit. Export last quarter's card statements, tag every recurring charge, and ask each owner if they actually use the tool. Anything that gets a "maybe" or blank stare gets canceled. You'll be surprised how many $29/month services survive on pure inertia.
From there, use dedicated virtual cards for every subscription. Relay lets you spin up a fresh card for each service, set monthly limits, and freeze the card instantly when you cancel—no more wrestling with "contact support to close your account" nonsense.
Set renewal reminders 30 days out. Route all new software requests through a single approver and review the subscription list quarterly.
The first audit alone usually pays for a nice team lunch.
7. Detect And Prevent Expense Fraud
Expense fraud rarely starts with grand larceny; it creeps in through small loopholes that grow into bigger problems.
The same lunch receipt submitted twice, inflated mileage claims, mysterious "client entertainment" that never happened—these thrive where visibility is poor. Platforms like Relay use AI to flag duplicate images and compare each transaction to historical patterns, allowing you to catch anomalies before reimbursement hits.
Smart controls free your team from ambiguity. They know their limits, they work within them, and nobody's stuck wondering if they'll get reimbursed. Meanwhile, the system quietly catches the outliers (including duplicate submissions, category violations, and unusual patterns) before they cost you real money.
8. Set Up Real-Time Monitoring and AI Analytics
Many business leaders lack visibility into their company's spending, a gap that stalls decision-making and invites unnecessary waste. Real-time dashboards track metrics like spend-to-budget by category, average approval time, and unsubmitted receipts. These tell you if money flows where it should, if bottlenecks slow work, and if documentation gaps will haunt you later.
You can also set automated alerts to notify you (or the relevant manager) when a category exceeds 80% of its limit. Then let the system deliver a concise weekly report to your inbox—no digging required.
9. Tie it Together with Quarterly Strategic Reviews
Quarterly reviews ensure your systems stay aligned with business reality. Pull your automated reports (Step 8), review budget performance (Step 3), and talk to people using your workflows (Step 2). Ask: Are subscription controls working (Step 6)? Do card limits match needs (Step 4)? Is receipt automation catching everything (Step 5)?
Then you can use your findings to adjust spending: tighten limits where spending drifted, loosen them where growth demands it, and update policies that aren't working. This transforms reactive auditing into a growth engine that adapts as your business scales.
How to Fix Common Roadblocks When Controlling Employee Spending
Late receipts and manual tracking create financial blind spots that can hinder business growth. When you're constantly chasing paper instead of working with clean data, your books become clogged and your decision-making suffers.
Here are four of the most common roadblocks to controlling employee spending and their solutions:
Receipt management chaos: Replace manual chasing with a banking platform that sends instant notifications when employees swipe, automatically storing receipt images with transactions.
Budget overruns: Implement real-time dashboards that clearly indicate the financial status of each project. This visibility allows you to course-correct before costs spiral out of control.
Shared card confusion: Issue individual physical or virtual cards with built-in limits for every team member. This eliminates the "who bought what" detective work while establishing clear spending boundaries.
Subscription sprawl: Create dedicated virtual cards for each SaaS payment that expire at renewal time. For emergency purchases, issue one-time virtual cards.
What Comes Next
The nine steps in this guide control employee spending by establishing key guidance: clear policies prevent confusion before spending happens, automated card controls enforce limits without micromanagement, real-time visibility replaces month-end surprises, and quarterly reviews turn spending data into a competitive advantage.
Relay builds these controls directly into your business banking. Multi-account setup automatically separates budgets, card controls enforce policies at the transaction level, and QuickBooks Online integration keeps books clean without extra work.
Stop chasing receipts. Start controlling spending.
Relay is a financial technology company and is not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Thread Bank, Member FDIC. FDIC deposit insurance covers the failure of an insured bank. The Relay Visa® Debit Card is issued by Thread Bank, member FDIC, pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. and may be used anywhere Visa debit cards are accepted. The Relay Visa Credit® Card is issued by Thread Bank, Member FDIC, pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc and may be used anywhere Visa credit cards are accepted. Certain conditions must be satisfied for pass-through deposit insurance coverage to apply.
