Preparing Your Company for Its First Reimbursement
Use this guide if you administer a company and want employees to start submitting reimbursements. A reimbursement is a claim for a business expense an employee has already paid.
Scenario: Your first employee claim
Your company wants to start receiving employee reimbursement claims through Reimburse.id. As the administrator, you prepare the people, access, and approval policy before asking an employee to submit the first claim.
Your goal: an employee can open the intended form, the approval route has been checked, and the person responsible for payment administration is clear.
You do not need to configure every feature before getting started. Begin with the people, access, form, and approval policy needed for your first claim.
Preparation At A Glance
Review and reuse existing setup when it already matches your company's policy. This chart ends at readiness; claim submission and payment processing are covered in the linked guides below.
1. People And Responsibilities
Decide who will handle each part of the process. One person may have several responsibilities, but each requires the appropriate access.
This guide follows these example users:
| Person | Responsibility |
|---|---|
| Jessica | First administrator; also reviews top-position approval tasks when assigned. |
| Eka | Submits a reimbursement and follows its progress. |
| Liam | Reviews claims assigned to him as Eka's supervisor. |
| Farhan | Prepares payment batches and records completed payments. |
| Fiona | Reviews payment batches assigned to her. |
These names are examples, not accounts you need to create. Throughout this guide, use the actual employees and reviewers who will handle these responsibilities at your company. Payment administration does not have to belong to Finance.
2. Complete Onboarding
If your company is new, register your company, complete email verification if requested, and follow Company Onboarding.
Onboarding asks for your position, expense categories, and the name of your first reimbursement form. Save the company URL so you can return to it and share it with employees who need access.
If the company already exists, sign in to it instead of registering another company.
Completing onboarding creates the starting structure. It does not mean your company's approval policy has already been configured.
3. Company Settings
Open Configuration > General & Controls > Settings.
Check the company information, currency, timezone, and amount/date formats. Keep the existing settings when they already match your company's needs.
The example in this guide uses Indonesian rupiah, IDR. Your company should use its own currency and timezone.
See Initial Setup for the individual settings.
4. Users And Access
A position describes where someone belongs in the organization. A role determines what that person can do in the application.
Prepare the people who will take part in the process:
- Open Configuration > Users & Access > Position. Review or create the positions and their parent relationships. See Position for the hierarchy controls.
- Open Configuration > Users & Access > Role. Review the available roles and grant the actions each responsibility needs. See Role for the access settings.
- Open Configuration > Users & Access > User. For a new employee, click Add, enter the account information, assign the appropriate role and position, check that the account is active, and click Save. Review an existing account instead of adding it again. See User for the account fields.
In the example hierarchy in Initial Setup, Eka belongs to Operations Staff, Liam to Operations Team Lead, and Jessica to the highest position. Use your own company's positions and employees; you do not need to reproduce these names.
Check that:
- The employee submitting the claim has an active account and permission to create reimbursements.
- The intended reviewers have reimbursement approval access.
- The people handling batches and payments have the separate capabilities needed for their responsibilities.
Selecting someone in an approval rule does not grant approval access.
Start with the users needed for this first journey. If you need to add many users, follow Import User.
5. Your First Form
Open Configuration > Forms & Fields > Reimbursement Forms.
You can configure the form created during onboarding; you do not have to create another one. Give it a recognizable name, such as General Claim, and check that it is active.
Prepare the essentials:
- Requester roles that may use the form.
- Active expense categories for the expense lines, maintained under Master Data > Expense Category.
- Required information and supporting attachments.
- A document-number preview that matches your company's needs.
If employees need guidance, add short instructions such as "Explain the business purpose and attach a readable receipt." Employees can open these through the instruction icon beside the form name.
Custom fields and special layouts can wait unless your company needs them for the first claim. See Reimbursement Configuration for detailed controls.
6. Approval Policy
Decide which claims require review before configuring the rules.
If the selected form already has rules, review their active status, conditions, approval stages, and order first. The first matching active rule is used; later rules are ignored. Adding an example rule does not replace existing rules. See Rule Priority before changing the order.
Keep rules that already implement your company's policy. Do not change, deactivate, or delete rules in use merely to reproduce this guide's example.
If there are no approval rules, or no active rule matches, the reimbursement is approved automatically. This does not transfer money.
The following is an optional example, not a required policy. Use it only if it matches your company's needs; the detailed setup is in Reimbursement Configuration:
| Claim Amount | Approval |
|---|---|
| Below Rp1,000,000 | Automatic approval because no rule matches. |
| Rp1,000,000 or more | Supervisor, then PIC Top Position. |
If starting with a form that has no rules and choosing this policy, create one active rule with Amount set to Minimum (>=) and 1000000, followed by Supervisor and PIC Top Position as separate stages. If existing rules already provide this routing, keep them rather than adding a duplicate.
With the example users correctly positioned, Eka's claim goes to Liam, then Jessica. The position hierarchy helps resolve those users; it does not automatically require approval from every level.
For this example, no other active rule should match claims below the threshold. An unconditional rule would send those claims for approval too. If your company requires that review, retain the policy and check its own routing instead.
7. Check The Workflow
Save any intended changes, then open Test Workflow. Select the actual employee who will submit the claim, check that employee's position, and use Simulate to check your company's policy. Check amounts below, at, and above any threshold, and confirm the intended reviewers.
Only if you chose the example policy in section 6, use these amounts and outcomes. The names below refer to the example people; your results should show the corresponding employees at your company:
| Amount | Result To Check |
|---|---|
| Rp999,999 | Automatic approval. |
| Rp1,000,000 | Liam, then Jessica. |
| Rp1,100,000 | Liam, then Jessica. |
Read the selected rule, resolved people, and any warnings. Resolve unexpected routing or access warnings before relying on the configuration.
Simulation uses saved settings. It does not create or submit a claim or send approval requests. For the actual submission steps, follow the Reimbursement User Guide.
8. Payment Responsibilities
Decide who will handle claims after approval.
In the example, Farhan prepares the batch and records payment; Fiona reviews the batch when the company's batch rules assign her. Use the people responsible at your company. Batch approval is separate from reimbursement approval.
Before the first payment, check recipient account information, payment-team access, and the Batch Payment Form settings.
The company transfers funds through its bank or another payment channel outside Reimburse.id. The application organizes batches, optional spreadsheet exports, payment status, and evidence.
You do not need a custom spreadsheet template to begin accepting claims. Continue with Payment Operations And Batch Payment when preparing payment processing.
9. Ready To Start
Before inviting employees to begin, confirm that:
- The company settings and expense categories are appropriate.
- The employee who will submit the first claim can sign in and open the intended form.
- Required information and evidence are clear.
- The approval results match your policy, including whether any claims may be approved automatically.
- Assigned reviewers have the necessary access.
- Someone is responsible for the payment steps that follow.
Ask that employee to check access using their own account. You do not need to enable reminders, configure special print layouts, or finish every optional feature first.
Once these checks are complete, continue with Reimbursement User Guide to submit and track the first claim.