How are disputes handled when expenses are coded incorrectly?

Short answer

Incorrectly coded expenses are identified during review or reconciliation, routed to the responsible approver or accountant for investigation, and corrected through a structured workflow that maintains an audit trail of the original coding, the change, and who made it. Accountants and admins can recode transactions directly from the dashboard, with all adjustments logged and synced to the ERP on the next export or re-sync.

On Ramp, accountants and admins can recode transactions directly from the dashboard and maintain a history of coding adjustments tied to each transaction.

When coding errors occur

Coding errors typically surface in a few common scenarios:

During transaction review: A manager or accountant notices the GL account, department, or class doesn't match the actual expense as transactions move through review states.
At reconciliation: Month-end close reveals transactions coded to the wrong category or cost center.
During audit: Pattern analysis shows recurring miscoding by specific employees or for certain vendor types.
After ERP sync: Finance teams catch discrepancies when reviewing synced transactions in their accounting system.

How to correct coding errors on Ramp

Ramp gives accountants and admins direct control to identify and resolve coding errors:

Identify the transaction: Navigate to the transaction in the Ramp dashboard or use filters to find miscoded expenses by GL account, department, merchant, or cardholder.
Review the original coding: Check the transaction details to see who coded it, when, and what supporting documentation (receipt, memo) was provided.
Recode the transaction: Update the GL account, department, class, location, or custom fields directly from the transaction page.
Document the change: Add context about why the coding was changed and reference any supporting communication or policy where your workflow supports it.
Maintain audit history : Ramp logs coding changes with information about who made the change and when it occurred.
Sync to ERP: The corrected coding syncs to your accounting system on the next export (or via a re-sync if the transaction was already exported), and the history remains available in Ramp.

Bulk recoding

When you need to correct multiple transactions with the same coding error:

Use Ramp's transaction filters to isolate all affected expenses (for example, all transactions from a specific merchant coded to the wrong GL account).
Select multiple transactions and apply bulk recoding to update them simultaneously.
Document the reason for the change where your workflow supports bulk notation.

This is especially useful when a policy change requires retroactive recoding or when a vendor category was consistently miscoded.

Preventing coding errors

Ramp helps reduce coding errors before they happen:

Default coding rules: Set up merchant-level or card-level defaults so transactions auto-code correctly based on your configuration.
Required fields: Enforce GL account, department, or memo requirements at the transaction level.
Approval workflows: Route transactions through managers or accountants who can catch and correct coding before month-end.
Real-time visibility: Accountants can review and recode transactions as they occur rather than waiting for reconciliation.

Note that how coding fields are set depends on how your accounting workflow is configured on Ramp.