COMPLIANCE
Smarter spending: why educating your people on expenses pays off
Andrew May, Chief Executive Officer, Webexpenses, explains why it’s so important to familiarise your workforce with your expenses policy
E ver seen the Spider-Man pointing meme? I’m sure you will have done, across any one of the social media channels we use so frequently now. It’s a still from the 1960s animated Spider-Man series, where an impostor version of the masked hero confronts the original. The image has been shared millions of times to capture moments of irony, hypocrisy or confused blame.
finance points back at HR and sometimes payroll gets dragged into the melee, too. Expense policies aren’t new, but they’re often overlooked. Filed away during onboarding or skimmed when someone books a trip. Many collect cobwebs until something goes wrong. Yet how employees manage business expenses directly affects compliance, financial control and company culture. That’s why expense education deserves more attention. Not just as a finance or HR initiative, but as a cross-functional priority, with payroll playing a crucial role in keeping things consistent, effective and compliant. Education on expenses matters Too often, organisations rely on (unread, let’s be honest) policy documents to guide employee behaviour. But if those documents aren’t well understood or regularly reinforced, the result is confusion,
and sometimes misuse. Whether it’s unclear rules on client entertainment or varied interpretations of what’s reasonable for travel, expense policies quickly become a grey area. When that happens, finance teams chase receipts, HR handles complaints and payroll picks up the pieces – reconciling reimbursements, correcting errors or navigating taxable benefits. That’s why education matters. By proactively teaching staff how to manage expenses, organisations can: ● reduce policy breaches and errors ● streamline approvals and reimbursements ● build trust in the system ● improve budgeting and cost control. The aim, always, is to build a culture of accountability, where employees understand both the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ behind spend management.
When expenses go wrong, who’s to blame?
The image is a fitting metaphor for what often happens when expenses go wrong. Human resources (HR) points at finance,
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | September 2025 | Issue 113 28
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