PostHog Handbook Library / People

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# Spending money

Auto TL;DR

## At a Glance

This long page covers these main areas. The list is generated from the article headings, so it updates with every handbook rebuild.

1. Guiding principles
2. How it works
3. Transparency & accountability
4. Logistics
5. UK employees
6. Receipts
7. Reviewing expenses
8. Team Leads

There are many occasions when you will need to spend company money. PostHog is a lean organization - the less we spend, the more time we have to make sure the company takes off. However, it is more important you are productive, healthy, and happy.

### Guiding principles

We have a context-based expense policy inspired by the book 'No Rules Rules'. We're empowering team members to make good decisions while maintaining transparency and accountability.

Ask yourself:

- Can you clearly explain why this expense is in PostHog's best interest?
- Would you be comfortable explaining this expense to the entire team publicly?

If the answer is yes, it is likely the expense is in the best interest of the company and supports your productivity.

If not, think again.

The goal here is to empower you. However, when in doubt, ask your team lead for context, not permission.

- Still in doubt? Ask Janani in #team-people-and-ops.

### How it works

- All company expenses (offsites, software/tool subscriptions, merch, etc.) will have common company-wide budgets.
- You'll be assigned a single `User Limit` of $5,000 per month in Brex from which you can spend money on individual subscriptions, coworking/collaboration, equipment (except laptops and Mac Studio Monitors - ping `#team-people-and-ops` for these), training, etc. If you need an increase in the limit, request it on Brex.

#### Transparency & accountability

- All expenses are visible company-wide
- If we have questions about an expense or need documentation, we'll reach out for clarification
- Team leads get monthly reports showing all direct report expenses

### Logistics

#### UK employees

Use your Revolut if the expense is over £75 _and_ has UK VAT on it. If not, use your Brex.

The company can claim back VAT on these larger purchases - the more money we claim back, the more money we have to #DoMoreWeird

Please make sure that the invoice is addressed to Hiberly Ltd and our registered address (this can be found in the Important Company Details sheet).

#### Receipts

All expenses over $75 or £75 must have itemized receipts attached and memo updated within 14 days of the charge, as this is what our auditors require.

- Brex: upload the itemized receipt using the Brex app, text, email or Slack, and update the memo using the Brex app, text, email or Slack.
- Revolut: email your itemized receipts to ukinvoices@posthog.com along with a memo in the body of the email

In extreme cases, expenses with no receipts above $75 or £75 may be deducted from your pay if we can't verify the business purpose - this is mainly for repeat offenders where someone's clearly ignoring the policy.

We need an _itemized receipt or invoices_ because Brex auto-verifies these using the information on the file. For example, this means the full booking confirmation email for flights/hotels, detailed bill from the restaurant for a team dinner etc. Please do not upload cropped images that show just the amount or just the credit card machine confirmation slip - without context, the receipt is pointless

> Template for a thorough memo

> - What: [item/service purchased]

> - Why: [business reason - how this helps PostHog/your work]

> - Context: [relevant details - who attended, what project, etc.]

### Reviewing expenses

Finance reviews:

- All expenses over $1000 (Brex)
- Random sampling of expenses under $1000 (Brex)
- All Revolut expenses

##### Team Leads

You'll get monthly expense reports for your direct reports. You have context Finance doesn't, which will help justify spending decisions to the auditors. How much you dig into these is up to you - the goal is catching patterns, not micromanaging.

#### Why documentation matters

Missing receipts and memos create extra work during audit season - auditors will need to dig into those expenses, which means hours of back-and-forth with you about charges from several months ago! A quick receipt upload and memo update now saves everyone time later.

We're legally prohibited from paying personal expenses on behalf of team member, and are at risk of penalties/fines if this happens.

> The flexible, trust-based policy we have only works when everyone maintains proper documentation. If team members consistently fail to upload receipts and add memos, we'll either need to implement rigid pre-approvals for all spending, or treat repeated violations as performance management issues. Which we really don't want to do!

### Budget structure on Brex

We're not going to police your spending with hard limits but we will continue to use budgets and limits on Brex for audits, and because categorizing this stuff properly is essential for things like Board reporting, tax compliance, and seeing how we're doing against our budget.

- Offsite budgets - managed by Kendal:
- Whole company offsite
- Mixed team offsites
- Small team offsites
- Onboardings
- Company software budget
- All subscriptions/tools used at a company level - (Janani should be default admin for all of these, so she can handle receipts etc.
- User Limit of $5,000 per month, per user
- This covers all co-working/collaboration costs, training, individual software subscription, etc.
- For subscriptions and other recurring monthly expenses, we recommend using the virtual card under your User Limit to ensure it gets categorized to the correct budget by default

Joining an offsite? _Only use the offsite budget_, not your User Limit - it helps the People & Ops track travel spend accurately against budgets. Let Kendal know in #team-people-and-ops.

### High-value & ongoing vendor contracts

Some of what we spend money on isn't a personal subscription or a one-off purchase - it's a platform a team runs to do its work, on a contract that bills continuously and at scale. Think infrastructure like Kafka, or certain security tooling. Spend here can run into the thousands or hundreds of thousands, so it deserves more care than "I subscribed to XYZ" - the guiding principles above still apply, they just matter more.

This section is about _living with_ a contract we've already got. Deciding whether to adopt a new tool in the first place is covered separately in Adding tools.

Who owns it? The team that operates the vendor owns its quota and spend - in practice, the person with the most context about the contract, usually whoever proposed or operates the tool. That includes keeping an eye on usage against the contract's limits (the usage terms and limits you agreed when you signed it) so nobody is surprised by the bill. The easiest way to stay on top of this is to fold it into the vendor's own periodic review (e.g. a quarterly business review), so quota and spend get looked at on a regular cadence rather than only when something goes wrong. Loop in your exec early - they should have enough context to support and guide you.

Need help getting at the financial data or the tools to track your spend? Ask in #project-infra-tools. We want everyone to be able to work with their spend easily, so this doesn't get in the way of shipping.

If a contract is running into overages or about to induce extra spend, flag it early. Act as soon as it's clear an overage is likely to persist over a longer time, or to have significant consequences on the bill - don't wait for it to land repeatedly first. The whole point of watching usage is to catch it before the money is spent. Concretely:

- The person with the most context on the contract drives this. Keep your team lead and the responsible exec aware - they own the area and help decide whether the extra spend is worth it or whether we right-size.
- Ping `@finance-folks` in Slack as soon as the overage looks material, and take it from there. That's usually enough - it keeps Finance in the loop so they can forecast it accurately.
- Pull in #legal if this is a _new_ contract, or if the legal details have changed and need a second look. Straight re-commits or renewals usually don't need legal, but a new contract always does (see Adding tools).
- For company-level tool billing, Janani in #team-people-and-ops is the default admin, so billing stays owned and categorized correctly. The billing email for any vendor contract is finance@posthog.com.

There's no fixed dollar amount that trips a formal approval - we stay trust-based and lead with context, not permission. Use your judgement for what counts as material. But spend at this scale isn't comparable to a personal subscription, so be proactive and transparent about it _early_ rather than once the overage has already landed.

Past a certain spend, it's worth challenging the tool or contract itself, if feasible - and it's up to you to decide what feasible means here. Software keeps getting cheaper, and at some point it may be cheaper to build than to buy. Pull in your exec to discuss this - it's exactly the kind of trade-off they should be weighing in on.

Renewals are the same process. A renewal isn't a rubber stamp - do the due diligence and see where you can optimize. Vendors can usually help here, so ask them. Pull in your exec and Finance for help negotiating the terms.

### Frequently asked questions 🤨

- Can I use my personal card for a work-related expense?
- No, you must use your Brex or Revolut for all work-related expenses.
- The company earns points which we use towards billboard campaigns. The Finance team also doesn't have the bandwidth to process lots of reimbursement requests.
- What if I accidentally used my personal card for a work-related expense?
- Claim a reimbursement with an itemized receipt on Brex within 90 days of incurring the expense, with a memo (context on what was the expense for and why your Brex wasn't used).
- We cannot process any reimbursements without a receipt.
- Can I use my Brex/Revolut for a personal expense?
- Obviously not.
- What happens if I forgot to assign the right spend limit before using Brex?
- Go into your Brex account and re-assign the charge to the correct limit.
- Can I bulk upload receipts to Brex?
- Yes, you can! Here are some helpful articles:
- Attaching receipts to any expense
- Attaching receipts for multiple expenses
- What do I do if I have a new tool/enterprise software subscription for the team to use?
- Add Janani as the Billing Admin to manage payments.
- If I'm asked for a billing email – for bill payments or when signing a vendor contract – what do I use?
- Use finance@posthog.com
- A vendor contract we rely on is running into overages / about to cost more – what do I do?
- Flag it early - see High-value & ongoing vendor contracts. Whoever has the most context on the contract should drive, keep your team lead and the responsible exec aware, and ping `@finance-folks` in Slack as soon as the overage looks material so Finance can forecast it. Use your judgement to assess what counts as material.
- What if I'm driving for work-related purposes?
- You can claim a mileage reimbursement through Brex. Do not separately expense fuel.
- What if I accidentally used the company card for a personal expense?
- Login to Brex > find the charge > click on 'Repay'.
- US and Canada: Brex's auto repay function works, so it'll pull the money from your connected bank account for you.
- International: auto repay isn't available, so the 'Repay' button only tracks the expense. You need to manually transfer the amount from your personal bank account to PostHog's bank account, using the details provided in our banking runbook.
- For Revolut charges, repay to the bank account details provided in our banking runbook
- How do I get access to WeWork?
- We have a company All Access account - ask Kendal in #team-people-and-ops.
- What if I've received a bill I need Finance to pay?
- Submit the bill using the 'Bill Pay' feature on Brex, with context on what it is for, and which budget the bill should be coming out of, once you have verified it.
- Finance processes all bill payments on Wednesdays.
- How do I upgrade my flight ticket to premium or business using my personal points/card?
- Book an economy ticket using your Brex, then upgrade afterwards using your personal points/card.
- If you can only book premium travel using personal miles or points/card then request a reimbursement for the cost of the economy fare in Brex, along with a screenshot of the cost of the economy fare at the time of booking.

### How we handle inappropriate spending

Expenses that could be construed as personal will be flagged as non-business expenses by auditors, as they will be considered a taxable benefit that PostHog has provided to you.

Examples of inappropriate spend include:

- Personal expenses during business travel (for example: gym sessions/fitness classes, groceries)
- Entertainment subscriptions for personal use (for example: Spotify, Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc.)
- Expenses that benefit you personally rather than the business
- Anything you wouldn't feel comfortable explaining publicly

If the inappropriate spend was due to a misunderstanding, e.g. you genuinely thought an expense was in PostHog’s best interest, but we disagree, we’ll provide clarification and context. If you knowingly and deliberately spent money in ways that are not in PostHog’s best interest, or tried to intentionally circumvent the guidelines, we will probably treat this as serious misconduct.

### Expense guidelines

#### Equipment

##### Laptop & monitor

Talk to Tara who handles Macbook and Apple Studio Display purchases - ping her on #team-people-and-ops.

- Having equipment purchases centralized helps ensure accurate accounting and tracking of fixed assets for the audit.
- We expect you to ship the Macbook and Apple Studio Display back when you leave PostHog.
- Apple Studio Displays are only for Product Engineers (high density screen), PM's and Sales/CS/Onboarding teams (built-in high quality webcam and microphone). For all other teams that feel they could benefit from an enhanced monitor, there are some really great competitors to the Studio Display at a fraction of the price - like the Clarity Pro 27" or another solid option is this LG screen You can purchase these using your personal limit.
- If you order a Studio Display during your probation period but end up leaving PostHog, we can recover the cost of the display and you won't need to return it.
- Laptop guidelines
- For engineering roles (product, platform, & support), we buy the Macbook Pro 14-inch M5 Pro 14", with the 18-core CPU, 20-core GPU upgrade and 64GB of RAM.
- For sales & CS roles, we buy the Macbook Pro 14-inch M5, with 10-core GPU, 16-core and the 32GB RAM upgrade.
- All other roles, we issue Macbook Pros. Wherever possible we will redistribute engineering models (Macbook Pros) no longer in use to allow you to have a more powerful machine for running PostHog Desktop.
- We only purchase laptops with an English keyboard configuration (US, International or British is fine) - this enables us to easily pass your laptop on to someone else if you upgrade or leave.
- In the unlikely case that you need to purchase your own laptop:
- Check if Amazon has sales before purchasing through Apple
- US only: use your Brex since we earn cashback
- Do not get AppleCare since it doesn't have great value for money
- You can request a new laptop in `#team-people-and-ops` if it is over 4 years old, (for engineering machines) has less than 48GB of RAM, or is significantly impacting your productivity. We do ask that you do some diligence to make sure it's not a setup issue though - i.e. other applications aren't hogging the memory, etc.
- Phones and iPads - if you require a phone (Apple or Android) or an iPad for your role, please reach out to Tara in `#team-people-and-ops`.

##### Other equipment

- Keyboard/mouse/laptop stand: Check Amazon and Apple for discounts. Refurbished items usually work just fine. Nextstand make great value laptop stands that are portable. You can use your personal budget for this.
- Desk & chair - again, refurbished is a great way to get high quality for less. If you live in the UK, Office Resale offer a range of like-new refurbished designer furniture. You can use your personal budget for this.

As a guide, here's what we'd consider reasonable spend:

- Desk - up to $500
- Chair - up to $500
- Keyboard - up to $250

If you want something more expensive, you can pay personally and submit a reimbursement request on Brex for up to the amount above.

#### Software

We are _strongly opposed_ to introducing new software that is designed for collaboration by default. There needs to be a very significant upside to introducing a new piece of software to outweigh its cost.

The cost of introducing new collaborative software is that it creates another place where todo items/comments/communication can exist. This creates a disproportionate amount of complexity.

Individual software is down to your personal preference, and we encourage you to share cool software.

- There are some tools used by team members individually - if they become more widely adopted, it makes sense to have a company account. Talk to Tara on #team-people-and-ops

You can ask for access to team/company tools by submitted a request in Slack. Find the Zluri app in Slack. type: /accessrequest and press enter. You'll get a pop up that allows you to search for the app you'd like access to. Add any specific information about license level/type if necessary. The request will then be sent to the team member who owns/manages access to the plaftorm. Once they have provided access to the platform, they'll confirm via the Zluri task and you'll also receive confirmation. You should then receive an email invite, or be able to login via SSO depending on the tool. If you do not see a tool in the app that you believe is centrally managed, drop a line in the [#team-people-and-ops] channel

- Some tools that you might find useful to know about:
- Loom: you'll be added as a _Creator Lite_ which allows you to record 25 videos/mo at up to 5 minutes in length. If you need a full Creator account (unlimited videos, advanced features), specify in your Zluri access request
- Zoom: we use Google Meet by default, but you can use Zoom for free (up to 40-minute calls). Should you need longer meetings, please specify in your Zluri access request (But does anyone _really_ need longer meetings?)
- Superhuman: everyone has their own favorite email app, but Superhuman users will make sure you don’t forget theirs. We have a team plan to keep those folks happy with inbox zero and inner peace.
- Granola: It’s absolutely okay to use AI note-takers so you can stay engaged in meetings without writing everything down. Feel free to choose your own but please be aware of who the sub-processors are to ensure they do not use a competitor for analytics.
- IDEs: Visual Studio, VIM and PyCharm are the most popular within our team. IDEs range widely in cost; best in class IDE suites can cost up to $700, which is not a great value proposition for most engineers.

- AI coding tools (Cursor, Claude Code, etc.) are encouraged, but usage-based pricing can climb fast. Most engineers' monthly spend lands around a single max-tier subscription (~$200/month). If yours is running several times higher, that's usually a misconfiguration or inefficient workflow rather than a genuine need – compare setups with your teammates and ask in #team-people-and-ops if you're unsure. We have a team Claude Code account that you can request to be added to using Zluri in slack.

#### Travel

- We travel in economy by default and do not pay for business class
- If you're unsure of your travel plans and believe you may have to cancel, it may be worth spending a bit extra to book flex tickets that allow a full refund to your Brex
- It may be worth occasionally upgrading to Premium Economy if you're travelling a lot for work and the cost is not unreasonably high, particularly if you're working the next day
- Consider signing up for programs like Global Entry if you are regularly traveling to countries that offer it, using your Brex; this saves you time, particularly when traveling to the US.
- When traveling internationally, use your Brex to expense a reasonable eSIM. PostHog does not cover roaming charges for your phone.
- When using your Brex internationally, use the local currency since Brex generally offers a better exchange rate.
- PostHog has international insurance for our work trips, so do not buy travel insurance when traveling on behalf of PostHog.
- It's fine to book your outbound / return flights for a different day to when you are required to be there as long as the flight is a similar price or less.
- Any other costs outside of the days you are required to be at an event are of course _not_ covered.

> If you find yourself needing to do extra travel outside of the regular things listed above, e.g. you've been asked to take a last minute trip to work on an emergency project, we may pay for a nicer seat here, especially if you are traveling at very short notice or long haul. Ask on #team-people-and-ops if you think this may apply to you. This is intended for genuine one-offs, not where you've decided you'd like to come along to an extra offsite!

- We strongly encourage team members to try and work together in person when practical. This isn't limited to just working with people in your team, but we expect that you have a reasonable reason you need to work together. You should default to doing this in SF/London, so you'll run into other PostHog people too.
- If you're in the same place as other team members, even if you aren't directly working together, PostHog will cover the cost of a dinner or a fun activity
- When visiting customers (or potential customers), we should look for opportunities to connect with them over a meal. These don't need to be extravagant, but they should be appropriate to the size and expectations of the customer. If you would be comfortable justifying the spend publicly in All Hands, you're probably fine.
- For a normal customer visit (yourself or a couple of people), just use your personal budget and request an increase through Brex if you need more. If the visit grows into something offsite-like (the whole team, multiple days, etc.), post in #team-people-and-ops and tag Kendal so she can create a separate budget for it.

##### Hub travel budget

We encourage people to visit our hubs in SF (Hogpatch) and London (Hedgehouse). These places generally have a high density of PostHog employees around, so you'll get to meet people from other teams, which makes cross-team work much easier and more successful. SF also has the benefit of being the epicenter of everything happening in tech, and we have lots of YC founders working out of Hogpatch who you can meet and learn from. It's good to get exposure to this, especially if you don't live in SF or haven't been recently.

There is no specific travel budget, this can come out of your general employee budget. We strongly encourage you to use your budget for this reason!

If you do decide to come, we ask that you make the trip worthwhile - attend a conference, speak at an event, gather a few colleagues to come with you at the same time and work on something specific together. Don't just pop in and put your headphones in while there - make it worth your while.

#### Sponsorships

If you believe an open-source project is fundamentally important to the success of PostHog then we should set up a recurring sponsorship. In this case, see the open-source sponsorship Marketing initiative.

Canonical URL: https://posthog.com/handbook/people/spending-money

GitHub source: contents/handbook/people/spending-money.md

Content hash: `a787fc3d5451ec7a`