Your top questions about Ramp’s travel, procurement, and reporting—answered
We just wrapped up our webinar covering everything Ramp released in Q3 to improve travel management, procurement, and spend reporting. If you missed the session, you can watch the replay here.
What we covered
Travel and expense management
Ramp’s expense automation just got even better. Now you can:
- Have employees text Ramp to submit suggested memos and reimbursement receipts. They can even ask for policy exceptions via SMS.
- Create advanced submission workflows on the backend to customize policies by department, level, entity, and even vendor category.
- Create multiple travel policies and turn on delegate booking to streamline travel management. Guest booking is coming soon!
Reporting
We asked folks on the webinar how long it takes them to catch department overspend issues—and the resounding answer was, “Too long.” Our new reports eliminate the most labor-intensive steps of reporting, so you can skip straight to acting on insights. We showed how you can:
- See a consolidated view of all your spend across card, reimbursements, and ACH
- See transactions in real time by employee, GL, category, vendor, department, and more.
- Use compliance reports to identify top out-of-policy offenders.
- Access process reports to see who has the most pending approvals and take steps to resolve them.
Procurement
Since launching Ramp Procurement earlier this year, we've helped customers catch $50M in overbilled payments and thousands of invoice errors. During the webinar, we showed how the following works with Ramp’s three-way match:
- Instant validation of your invoices against purchase orders and item receipts so you only pay for what you ordered
- Automated variance alerts to help you investigate mismatches
- Flexibility to fit your preferred workflow
Ramp Procurement is available to all customers on Ramp Plus. Not on Ramp Plus? Try Ramp Procurement for 30 days, free of charge or sign up for Ramp Plus.
Accounting
If you spend a lot of time sorting transactions and reconciling data, join our webinar next week to see how Ramp's accounting automation can help. We'll demo our new reconciliation tool that reconciles your Ramp statements with your ERP data with 100% accuracy. Sign up here:
Answers to your burning questions
We received over 100 questions during the webinar! Here are answers to the top ones:
How can I import purchase orders into Ramp?
At this time, Ramp can only import POs from NetSuite and QuickBooks Online. If you're on another accounting system, use Ramp Procurement to create POs.
What is the best way to create travel budgets for different departments?
We recommend using Ramp's shared limits to create department-specific travel funds. Admins can easily track all transactions and reimbursements associated with the limit, including hotel bookings, flights, and per diem expenses.
Who can access Ramp’s newest reports?
Ramp reports are available to all admins. Managers can also see and access items related to their team members.
How can we generate a report of card transactions that still need approval along with the list of managers responsible for approving them?
Head to Ramp’s Insights tab, click Process > Pending Approvals, and filter by transactions. The table will show which managers need to act next. Pro tip: To remind all approvers to approve transactions, go to the Expenses tab and click Reminders.
Does Ramp Procurement handle contractors and service agreements that don’t fall under traditional three-way match?
Absolutely! Our intake form can ingest any type of purchase request, including contractors.
Can I turn off suggested memos or set default suggested memos for my team?
At this time, suggested memos can’t be turned off or customized by admins. However, employees can easily respond to Ramp's SMS reminders with their own memo or add details to suggested memos within Ramp.
Can employees book Southwest flights with Ramp Travel?
Ramp Travel currently doesn't offer Southwest flights, but updates are coming soon!
Can Ramp require employees to submit attendee names for all meals?
We don't currently offer the ability to require meal attendee information. However, if the Google Calendar integration is turned on, Ramp will automatically gather context from employees’ calendars to tailor its suggested memos and attendee list. Learn more about the Google Calendar integration.
How can I see card and reimbursement expenses by individual?
Go to the Insights tab and click Spend by Person. Use the spend type and spender filters to customize the report.
Can I adjust the approvers in a draft bill?
We hear you—this ability is coming in late November!
Can we create custom reports? I want to create a stacked bar chart showing spend amounts by accounting categories.
We are working on this! You'll be able to do this by early next year.
What happens when you text “Oops” to Ramp?
When you reply to Ramp SMS receipt reminders with “Oops,” it'll automatically generate a policy exception—handy for those times when you forget to grab a receipt.
Do travel policies apply to trips booked outside of Ramp?
You can still enforce much of your travel policy if employees book their trip outside of Ramp. Simply have them forward their itinerary to [email protected] or upload it directly on Ramp. Note, the market-rate policy rule cannot be applied to off-platform bookings.
Can we create travel policies for different groups of employees? For example, I'd like to let execs book first class.
Yes, you can create multiple travel policies tailored to different individuals, teams, locations, and more. This feature is available to customers on Ramp Plus.
Can employees use their personal frequent flyer miles when booking with specific airlines?
Yes! Employees can add their frequent flyer number by going to My Ramp > Travel > Traveler Profile. From there, they can search for their airline and input their frequent flyer number.
Can we book car rentals through RampTravel?
Car rentals are coming soon in the next couple of months! However, we are not able to support negotiated rates.
Can employees submit a reimbursement as a set per diem, with the ability to reduce the amount based on provided meals (e.g., $100/day reduced by $20 for breakfast, $30 for lunch, $50 for dinner)?
Yes, employees can submit per diem reimbursements, but per diems can't be broken down by meal. The per diem is set in Expenses > Travel > Manage > Travel Policy, and reimbursements are flagged if they exceed the set limit. Per diem tracking covers categories related to meals, groceries, and alcohol.
Does Ramp have example expense policies? I need help building one from scratch and would love a starting point.
Yes! You can check out our free expense policy template here. You'll also see examples when creating expense policies and approval workflows in Ramp.
Would you recommend companies use spend programs? If so, how can they set up the process efficiently?
Spend programs make it easy to issue cards with similar controls for employees, simplifying onboarding and procurement. You can choose to automatically issue spend program cards or make them available for employees to request. Learn more here.
Which ERPs currently support automatic PO ingestion for Ramp Procurement?
We currently support PO ingestion for customers using QuickBooks Online and NetSuite.
“I assumed I would have to choose between speed and control. What I found is that you can have both. A well-designed system takes friction out, for the finance function and for everyone else.”
Justin Webster
CFO, Denver Broncos
“A well-run district should not have to choose between getting work done at the school site and keeping control of the dollars behind it. We're not hiring more people to do more jobs, so we have to be smarter about the process. With Ramp, the purchase, the receipt, and the record stay together from the start. ”
Nick Brizeno
Director of Purchasing, San Marcos Unified School District
“AI is moving faster than the finance context around it. Prices change, models change, and the value is not always obvious from an invoice. We needed enough detail to know which bets deserved more investment — and which ones did not.”
Greg Cooley
Controller, AngelList
“Invoices, cards, tokens. The categories change but the principle doesn't: know where the money is going, remove the work around it, and make sure the spend is worth it.”
Maciej Mylik. Finance
ElevenLabs
“We weren’t trying to retrofit an old finance system. We had a blank canvas, and Ramp gave us the foundation to build a global finance function of the future.”
Justin Dourado
Director of Finance, Othership
“There's just no surprises anymore. No more waiting two months to find out how a job did. We know how it's doing as it's happening.”
Erich Kuss
Financial Systems Manager, Infinity Home Services
“More token spend isn’t proof that AI is working. Less isn’t proof that it isn’t. What matters is whether we’re buying the right level of intelligence for the work. Ramp lets us make that judgment in the same place we manage every other type of spend.”
Cody Nutt
Senior Director of Business Systems, Daxko
“Most banks treat the back office as a cost to keep down. We treat ours as a return to compound, which is why we run it on Ramp. Now we put our clients on Ramp, too.”
Patrick Gaughen
President & COO, Hingham Institution for Savings
