The words you'll see in Expenses and Factorial cards, in plain language. Use it when you set up Expenses, review an expense or explain something to your team.

Expenses and how they're created

• Expense: something an employee paid for work, recorded in Factorial so it can be approved and, if needed, paid back.
• Expense types: Regular expense (backed by a receipt or invoice, like a meal or a train ticket), Mileage (distance driven in your own vehicle for work, paid at your company's mileage rate) and Per diem (a fixed daily allowance for work trips, paid at your company's per diem rate).
• Manual expense: created by the employee, usually paid out of their own pocket.
• Card expense: created automatically from a Factorial card payment. You only add the receipt.
• Owner: the employee the expense belongs to. Their approval flow and reimbursement apply.
• Reporting on behalf: creating an expense for someone else, for example an assistant for their manager. It still belongs to the other person.
• Expense group: several expenses of one person sent and reviewed together, for example one trip.
• Receipt reading: Factorial reads the receipt you add and fills in the date, amount, vendor and taxes.
• Expenses user: an employee added to Expenses, who can create expenses.

Statuses

An expense always has one status: Draft, Pending, Changes requested, Rejected, Approved, In payroll, Sent to pay, Paid or Payment reversed. See Expense statuses and alerts for what each one means.

Rules and approvals

• Approval flow: your company's rules for who reviews an expense, and when. You set it up by chatting with One, our AI assistant.
• Reviewer (approver): a person asked to approve an expense.
• Auto-approval: a rule that approves some expenses without a person, for example those that pass Expense checks.
• Global Approver for Expenses: a permission that lets someone fully manage any expense they can see, skipping the approval flow.
• Reset approval flow: starting an expense's approval again from the first step.
• Expense checks: One checks every expense against your expense policy: In policy, Warning, Out of policy or Not checked.
• Hard flag / soft flag: hard means out of policy, soft means worth a look. Neither blocks the expense.
• Alert: a signal for the reviewer, such as a possible duplicate, a meal on a day already covered by a per diem, or over budget. Alerts never block submitting or approving.
• Budget: an amount a group of people can spend over a period. Expenses count against it as they come in.

Settings and accounting

• Category / subcategory: what the expense was for, like Meals or Taxis. Categories are a fixed list; your company can add subcategories.
• Expense form: the details asked for on each expense, and which are mandatory.
• Rate: a mileage amount per km or mile, or a per diem amount per day, assigned to people.
• Legal entity: one of the companies in your Factorial account. It sets the currency, taxes and accounts.
• Document currency: the currency on the receipt.
• Reimbursable amount / currency: how much the employee is paid back, and in which currency.
• Reimbursement: paying an approved expense back, through payroll, a SEPA payment, or Set as paid after paying another way.
• Payroll concept: the line on the payslip where an expense paid back through payroll appears. You link each expense category to one. See How do I set up how expenses appear on the payslip?
• Cost centre: a label to group costs, for example by department or project.
• Ledger account: the account in your chart of accounts an expense is recorded in.
• Factorial card: a physical or virtual company card issued through Factorial. Its payments become card expenses.
• One: our AI assistant. It can create expenses for you, help you review them, and set up your approval flow and Expense checks.

Tips and Best Practices

• Share this glossary with new approvers and finance team members.
• Related: Expenses overview: what it does for your company · Expense statuses and alerts

Troubleshooting and FAQ

Troubleshooting

I see a word on screen that isn't here.
Check the related article for that screen, or ask One what it means in your company's setup.

FAQ

1. What's the difference between an alert and a status?

A status says where the expense is in its life (for example Pending). An alert is extra information for the reviewer (for example a possible duplicate). An expense has one status and can have several alerts.

2. Is "Category conflict" a status?

No. It's an alert that a meal expense falls on a day already covered by a per diem.

3. What happened to spending policies?

Expense checks replace spending policies. Rules from old policies become checks when your company moves over.