If your employees receive a commuting budget (= Flex budget) or a Business budget for professional transportation, you may not want them to make expenses on these budgets during non-working days, i.e. weekends and/or public holidays. But you also don't want to prevent them from charging or refuelling when they need to.
Correctly setting your spending controls in Mbrella may seem complicated at first but we'll guide you through it! Once your spending controls are correctly set, you don't have to worry about this anymore.
Where to manage expense controls
In Mbrella, navigate to "Expenses"
At the top right, click "Spending controls"
Here, make sure you correctly select the categories that you want to make available to your employees.
💡There is a column with each category per budget
💡You can untick the boxes for the budgets you don't use in your company but this is not necessary
💡The column "no budget" allows expenses to be created without budget. If your employees are not allowed to do any spending outside of their budgets, untick all these boxes. Note that Mbrella needs the category "Public transport" if Mbrella manages your third party payer agreements for public transport.
Click the second tab: "Calendar"
You'll see 2 sections:
Allow budget usage during weekends and public holidays
Disable calendar restrictions for specific categories
In this last section, you can separately manage the calendar restrictions for Charging, Fuel and Parking.
How to correctly set your calendar restrictions for Charging, Fuel and Parking
Charging, fuel and parking expenses are legally excluded from the Legal Mobility Budget. These calendar restrictions have therefore no impact on your Legal Mobility Budget.
Since the Flex budget is often used for purely commuting purposes, and the Business budget for professional transportation, you might want to block your employees from using these budgets during weekends and public holidays. However, you don't want your employees to be stuck at the side of the road, unable to charge or refuel, or park. Therefore, we do want to make these expense categories accessible during weekends and public holidays.
If your employees can expense charging, fuel and/or parking expenses in their Flex or Business budget, make sure these categories are selected in the spending controls, in the right budget column.
If you don't want employees to use their Flex or Business budget during the weekends and public holidays, make sure these boxes are unticked under "Calendar" - Section 1: "Allow budget usage during weekends and public holidays".
If you want to make an exception on this rule for charging, fuel and/or parking expenses, tick the corresponding boxes under "Calendar" - Section 2: "Disable calendar restrictions for specific categories".
As a result, your employees won't be able to use Mbrella Pay or create expenses in Mbrella on a weekend or public holiday date. But they will be able to use their card and/or add expenses in the categories charging, fuel and/or parking.
💡Disabling the calendar restrictions will cancel out the settings from the section above, meaning either allowing or blocking Flex and Business expenses during weekends and public holidays. There is no distinction here between the Flex and Business budget. Not to worry, generally these expense categories are linked to either one of those budgets, and not both.
An example for the Business budget, in which Charging and Fuel are allowed during weekends and public holidays, and Parking expenses are blocked during weekends and public holidays.
The spending controls
Fuel, Parking and Charging are ticked in the column "Business" budget
The calendar restrictions
Section 1: Allow budget usage during weekends and public holidays
Both the weekend and the public holiday boxes are unticked
= Business expenses are not allowed during weekends and public holidays.
This means that your employees won't be able to add any expenses on the business budget (like taxi or shared mobility) on those days.
Section 2: Disable calendar restrictions for specific categories
Charging and Fuel are enabled. Parking is disabled
= Charging and Fuel expenses are allowed during weekends and public holidays.
Parking is not allowed during weekends and public holidays.
This means that your employees won't be able to add taxi or shared mobility or Parking expenses on the business budget. But they will be able to add Charging and Fuel expenses (The same goes for expenses made with Mbrella Pay).
We hope this clarifies how you can set your spending controls based on your company's policy. Don't hesitate to reach out to your Account Manager or support@mbrella.eu for further information.