Expense report game: approve or reject every claim

Scoring the expense report game

Each claim you rule on right scores 100 points. A wrong call scores nothing and puts an audit note on your file. The third audit note ends the shift.

In a standard shift the clock starts at 120 seconds. On each claim it ticks only when the score line, the clock and both buttons are all in view, and it stops while you read the ruling. A ruling made with the clock stopped is refused. Rule on all 14 claims and each second left on the clock adds 5 points, so a desk cleared with 40 seconds to spare adds 200.

A claim still on the desk when the clock runs out scores nothing, and neither does the pile behind it. The ceiling is 2,000 points, which takes 14 right calls with the clock untouched. Your best score stays in this browser.

How the policy grows

The first claim meets 3 rules. A new rule arrives after every 3 claims, stamped New on the memo, so the last two claims face 7. On a phone, where the memo sits below the desk, the new rule also shows under the buttons. Each claim breaks one rule in force or none, so every ruling has a single reason.

After each call, the ruling quotes the rule that decided it. That includes a clean claim that only passed on an exemption. One rule rejects any note that says “as discussed”, the claim form’s version of per my last email.

VPs and their exemptions

Nine of the 60 rules carry an exemption, and every one of them covers VPs. Seven name VPs alone, and two let managers in as well. A VP’s business class flight, junior suite or black car to the airport passes where the same slip from staff is rejected. Some clean claims are built on an exemption on purpose, to see whether you reject a VP on principle. No one exemption sets that trap more than twice a shift.

Today’s shift and solo shifts

Today’s shift deals the same rules and the same claims to everyone. A solo shift draws a new policy from the 60 rules and deals new claims. Three kinds of shift change the terms, and the start panel names the shift you drew. Quarter-end close cuts the clock to 90 seconds, audit season brings a rule every 2 claims, and VP week piles on the exemptions.

The Take your time box turns the clock off. That shift has no time bonus and sets no best, but as a daily round it still earns merit on a day Expense Report is on the time card. Every scored game on the games to play at work hub has a daily round like this one.

The booth, moved to Finance

Papers, Please puts you in a border booth, checking travelers’ papers against rules that grow as the days pass. Lucas Pope released it in 2013, and it sold over five million copies in its first 10 years. He has said its rules change “to ratchet up the pressure or direct the story”.

Expense Report moves the booth to a claims desk. The papers are receipts, the travelers are colleagues, and the memo on the wall gains a rule every few claims. In The Application you fill in the form yourself, and its rules pile up on you.

The $75 receipt line

Under US tax rules, a business expense other than lodging needs no receipt below $75. Lodging needs one at any price, unless your employer pays a per diem for it. The game’s first receipt rule draws the same line at $75, and a later rule catches claims from $70 to $74.99.

A hotel night and a dinner

The standard federal travel allowance for the 2027 fiscal year is $113 a night for lodging and $68 a day for meals and incidentals, across most of the continental US. It applies from October 1, 2026. The game caps a hotel night at $113 and a meal for one at $68, a whole day’s meal money on one dinner.

Client gifts

US tax rules let a business deduct no more than $25 a year for gifts to one person. The game caps a client gift at $25, which buys a small gift basket or an engraved pen at the cheap end.