3 February 2026

What to prepare before an expense compliance review

A short packing list for finance leads who want the sampling week to start on day one, not day four.

Reviews stall when the policy version on the shared drive differs from the PDF staff actually follow. Before any sampling begins, lock the authoritative policy date and collect every local addendum that covers travel bands or entertainment thresholds for Taiwan.

Next, export claims for the agreed period with columns that matter: submitter, approver, category, amount, currency, and attachment flag. Fancy dashboards are unnecessary; a clean spreadsheet with stable claim IDs is enough.

Assign one person who can answer questions about grey-area approvals within a day. Without that contact, reviewers mark items as open exceptions simply because nobody confirms whether a VP verbal approval was later recorded.

Finally, warn frequent travelers that a handful of claims may be requested with full itineraries. People who know a review is coming tend to attach clearer lodging invoices the first time.

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