Set Up a Meals Expense Policy

Your company can set up and enforce meal expense policies to help control, manage, and reduce spending for meal expenses.

Examples of scenarios where a meals expense policy is applicable include the following: a salesperson requests reimbursement for a lunch with customers, a consultant requests reimbursement for meals on a business trip, an employee requests reimbursement for meals while attending an off-site workshop.

This topic covers the following aspects of setting up a meals expense policy.

• Setting Up a Meals Expense Policy

• Setting Up Policy Violations

• Completing the Meals Rate Spreadsheet

• Associating the Meals Expense Policy with an Expense Type

Setting Up a Meals Expense Policy

The following procedure enables you to set up a meals expense policy and complete the meals rate spreadsheet for uploading to the application.

1. In the Setup and Maintenance work area, go to the following:

   • Offering: Financials

   • Functional Area: Expenses

   • Task: Manage Policies by Expense Category

2. On the Manage Policies by Expense Category page select Meals from the Create Policy choice list.

3. On the Create Meals Expense Policy page in the Rate Definition section, do the following:

   1. Select the Single instance limit check box.

   2. Select the Single currency radio button.

   3. Currency = USD US Dollar

   Note: If a currency rate conversion is necessary to verify a policy rate limit, you must define a conversion rate in Oracle Fusion General Ledger.

4. In the Rate Determinants section, do the following:

   1. Select the Role check box.

   2. Role Type = Job.

5. In the Policy Enforcements section, do the following:

   1. Select the Policy violation warning check box.

   2. Warning Tolerance Percentage = 10.

   3. Select the Display warning to user check box.

   4. Select the Prevent report submission check box.

   5. Error Tolerance Percentage = 20.

The preceding meals expense policy says the following: The meals expense policy is set up with a single instance rate in US dollars, by job, and is enforced by a warning and an error.

Setting Up Policy Violations

You can set up policy violations for a meals expense policy as shown in the following table.

Policy Violation	Application's Action	Effect	Calculation
Warning	Generates a warning policy violation when a meals expense exceeds the defined tolerance.	You see a warning if you selected the Display warning to user check box. A warning is always displayed to the approver, whether or not you select the Display warning to user check box.	Policy Rate * (1+Warning Tolerance/100)
Error	Generates an error policy violation when a meals expense exceeds the defined tolerance.	You see an error and you're prevented from submitting the meals expense report.	Policy Rate * (1+Error Tolerance/100)

Completing the Meals Rate Spreadsheet

To complete a meals rate spreadsheet, perform the following steps.

1. On the Create Meals Policy page, click the Create Rates button.

2. Download the predefined spreadsheet to your local drive for completion.

   Note: If you select rate determinants in the Rate Determinants section, you complete the predefined spreadsheet. If you don't select any rate determinants, you create meals rates in the Create Rates dialog box.

3. On the Create Meals Rates spreadsheet, complete the fields contained in the following table.

   Role	Single Instance Limit (USD)	Start Date
   ACC500.Accounting Manager	120	1/2014
   SAL600.Salesperson	150	1/2014
   SAL700.Sales Manager	180	1/2014
   All Others	150	1/2014

4. Click the Upload button.

When rates are successfully uploaded, the policy status is valid. To use the rates spreadsheet for calculation of meal expenses, you must:

1. Activate the meals expense policy.

   1. On the Manage Policies by Expense Category page, select the meals expense policy that you created and click the Activate button.

2. Assign the meals expense policy to an expense type.

Assigning the Meals Expense Policy to an Expense Type

To assign the meals expense policy to an expense type, complete the following steps:

1. In the Setup and Maintenance work area, go to the following:

   • Offering: Financials

   • Functional Area: Expenses

   • Task: Manage Expense Report Templates

2. On the Manage Expense Report Templates page, click the Create icon or select an applicable template for a business unit.

3. On the Create Expense Report Template page, create a template for meals expenses.

4. On the Expense Types tab, click the Create icon to open the Create Expense Type dialog box.

5. In the Create Expense Type dialog box, select Meals from the Category choice list.

6. On the Policies tab in the Create Expense Type dialog box, select the meals expense policy you created, specify the start date, and optionally specify an end date.