A spend policy only works if people read it, so keep it to one page your newest starter can follow.
The first spend policy we ever saw from a customer was scribbled on the back of a delivery note in a small Manchester print shop. It said, more or less, ask before you buy anything big. Everyone nodded. Then a new starter ordered a laminator on a Friday afternoon, the owner saw the payment pop up as an instant notification while she was halfway through a pint in the Northern Quarter, and the whole weekend went on wondering whose fault it was. Nobody's, honestly. The rule had simply never been written down in a way anyone could check.
That story stuck with us, because we hear versions of it all the time. A policy fits on one page because people actually read one page. Long documents get filed and forgotten. A single sheet gets pinned above the kettle, and that is exactly where you want it.
What belongs on the page
- Who can spend, and from which cards or accounts.
- What counts as a routine purchase, and what needs a quick yes first.
- How to ask for that yes, described in a single sentence.
- What happens to the receipt once the payment goes through.
Write it in the words your team already uses at work. If everyone calls it the stock card, call it the stock card. Skip phrases like discretionary expenditure, because nobody says that out loud. Short sentences help. So does an example or two, such as a train ticket to a client meeting being fine while a new chair for the office needs a message to the owner beforehand.
Then put the policy where the money actually moves. Inside Business Online Banking you can set up cards and permissions so they match what the page says, which means the rule and the setting agree with each other instead of drifting apart. Read it again together once a year, perhaps in spring when things are a little quieter, and cross out anything that no longer fits. A policy that changes with your team is a policy people trust.
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