Table of Contents
Overview
Expense policy agent lets you turn your own expense policy into an always-on AI reviewer for every reimbursement claim your team submits. Available to Grow and Accelerate customers, it reads your uploaded policy documents and flags potential violations.
Once trained on your policy documents, this AI agent helps you:
Save time: Reduce the manual workload of reading receipts, cross-checking values, and verifying each line against your policy.
Increase accuracy: Catch duplicates, mismatched currencies, and policy violations that humans might miss, based on the rules you actually enforce today.
Educate users: Provide clear, policy-based explanations when an expense is flagged, including links to the relevant section(s) of your policy so approvers understand the “why”.
Even if you haven’t uploaded a policy document yet, Policy agent still provides baseline protection out of the box by checking for standard errors like duplicate receipts and obviously wrong values.
Note: Policy agent is currently in Early access. While highly accurate, human approvers maintain full control and final decision-making power over all expenses.
Setup
The most powerful way to use Policy agent is to customise it with your own expense policies. Once configured, the agent uses your document(s) as its source of truth for what is in or out of policy during review.
1. Customise your agent with your policy documents
Navigate to Expenses > Settings > Policy agent [Early access].
Upload your policy documents: Drag and drop your expense policy files (PDF) into the upload area.
Activation: The agent begins enforcing your specific rules immediately once the conversion of your document(s) is complete. Your policy documents become the agent’s knowledge for what’s in or out of the policy during review.
Assign entities: Choose which legal entities the rules apply to (e.g., “All entities” or selected entities only).
2. Baseline protection without an uploaded policy
If you haven’t uploaded a policy yet, Policy agent is still automatically enabled for all Grow and Accelerate customers to enforce baseline compliance, such as detecting duplicate receipts and other obvious issues. You can rely on this default behaviour from day one, then unlock deeper, policy-specific checks as soon as you upload your own policy file.
How Policy agent works
Policy agent works in the background of your expense approval flow.
When an employee submits a reimbursement report:
General checks: Policy agent first checks standard settings (e.g., required fields).
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AI evaluation: Policy agent reads the report details and receipt, checks for issues like duplicates or wrong values, and if customized, compares all details against your uploaded policy and its hidden notes.
If compliant: The agent marks the expense as verified. A green badge appears.
If non-compliant or in doubt: The agent flags the expense for review. It will list one or more reasons and link to specific section(s) of your policy that may have been violated.
Policy agent is a tool to accelerate, not replace, human judgment.
Humans remain in control: Approvers and Admins can always choose to approve an expense even if the agent flagged it.
Feedback loop: Your users can send feedback with the thumbs up/down feature on specific flags raised by the agent or its lack thereof. This helps reporting when the agent was helpful or if its interpretation was inaccurate. It does not train the agent automatically.
Important: Your existing Airwallex settings (submission deadlines, approval routing, form requirements) always override the agent. I.e If a hard rule/setting is set on an expense, the Policy agent will not challenge it.
FAQs
What are AI agents?
AI agents are task-focused AI capabilities designed to handle specific finance workflows. Each agent supports a defined job, such as matching receipts, extracting invoice details, flagging unusual spend, or guiding setup. They work autonomously to reduce errors and manual work across expenses and accounts payable.
How can I specify exceptions?
You may have "gray areas" or specific context that approvers know, but aren't explicitly written in the employee handbook (e.g., "The $50 dinner limit doesn't apply to the Sales team during client closing week").
You can add Hidden notes to your Policy agent:
These notes are only visible to Admins.
They are never revealed to employees.
They help the agent make smarter decisions by handling exceptions without cluttering your public policy.
To add a hidden note, simply type your rule or exception in the "Hidden notes" field within the Policy agent settings.
Can I apply different policies to different international entities?
As a global platform, we know that a single policy rarely fits all subsidiaries. You have full flexibility to manage scope:
Global baseline: You can upload a master policy that applies to "All entities" to verify fundamentals.
Entity-specific rules: You can upload specific policy documents for individual entities. This is particularly useful for handling local tax nuances.
Local exceptions: If you have a generally global policy with minor local variations, you can use hidden notes to prompt the agent with specific exceptions (e.g., "For Japan employees only, allow taxi expenses after 10 PM").
How does the agent handle data privacy?
Airwallex takes privacy seriously. Information we collect and retain is governed by the standard Airwallex Privacy Policy.
When you upload a policy:
We convert it into "AI-friendly" logic.
We automatically remove sensitive data and unusable clauses during this process.
Your policies, flags, user feedback and all business data are NOT used to train any model.
What languages does the Policy agent support?
Airwallex Policy agent is designed for global teams. It can read receipts and policy documents in multiple languages, not just English.
If an employee submits a receipt in a foreign language (e.g., French, Chinese, Japanese), the agent will translate and interpret the context to verify compliance.
The agent's flags and reasoning will be presented in the language of your dashboard, ensuring you understand the issue regardless of the receipt's origin.
How do I update my policy?
If your company policy changes, simply upload the new version of the document(s) in Expenses > Settings > Policy agent. Your policy will apply immediately on all new expenses submitted thereafter.