Budgets help you manage team spending by setting limits on how much team members can spend, where they can spend it, and for how long. You can create budgets for expenses like meals, travel, or office supplies, assign them to team members, and track spending from your Mercury dashboard.
How budgets work
Each budget has a per-person spending limit and rules for how it can be used. When creating a budget, you can configure:
- Name and icon: Identify what the budget is for
- Spending limit: Set how much each assigned team member can spend
- Frequency: Choose whether the budget is one-time or recurring
- Start and end dates: Set when the budget is available, starting today with no end date by default
- Spending controls: Restrict spending to specific merchants or merchant types
- Team members: Assign the budget to specific people, all team members, or newly invited team members
Budgets refill according to their frequency and become unavailable when their funds are exhausted or they expire. You can edit, reassign, or archive budgets as your team's needs change.
Spending controls
Every budget includes a per-person spending limit. You can use the limit on its own or add restrictions:
- Spend limit only: Transactions are declined if the budget doesn't have enough funds available
- Allow specific merchants: Only transactions from approved merchants are allowed
- Allow specific merchant types: Only transactions from approved merchant types, such as restaurants or airlines, are allowed
Transactions that don't meet a budget's spending controls are declined, even if funds are available.
Budgets and cards
Budgets work with both Mercury debit and IO cards. Team members need at least one card to make purchases from their assigned budgets, but multiple budgets can share the same card.
When a card has multiple budgets, Mercury automatically assigns each transaction to the most relevant eligible budget based on the purchase details.
If a team member doesn't have a card, you can issue one when creating a budget. If their existing card already has a spending limit, you can choose to keep that limit as a separate budget or replace it with the new budget.
Creating budgets
Admins and users with permission to manage spend can create and manage budgets from the Team Spend section of their Mercury dashboard.
Setting up budgets for the first time
If you haven't created any budgets yet, select Team Spend from the left sidebar. You'll be guided through setting up your team's spending, including inviting team members, setting team policies, configuring cards, and setting up reimbursements.
Creating additional budgets
You can create more budgets at any time from the Budgets page under Team Spend.
- Select Team Spend > Budgets from the left sidebar, then click Create budget
- Choose one or more budget templates to customize, or start from scratch
- Enter a budget name, icon, per-person spending limit, and optional description
- Choose a spending control
- Assign team members, set start and end dates, and optionally select a spending category
- Review the budget preview on the right, then click Next
- Choose which cards team members will use for their budgets:
- For team members without cards, issue a new virtual or physical card
- For team members with existing cards, assign the budget to an existing card or issue a new one
- If an existing card has its own spending limit, choose how to handle it:
- Convert existing limit into a budget: Keep the existing limit as a separate budget alongside the new budget
- Replace existing limit with budgets: Remove the existing card limit and apply only the new budget rules
- Review the budget details, assigned team members, and any new cards, then click Create budget
Assigning budgets to team members
You can assign an existing budget to a team member directly from the Team Spend home page.
- Select Team Spend from the left sidebar
- Click Assign spend in the upper-right corner
- Choose an existing budget from the Select a budget dropdown
- Click Next and follow the prompts to complete the assignment
You can also select Create a card or Create a budget from the Assign budgets window if you need to set up either one first.
Reviewing and managing budgets
You can review team spending from the Team Spend home page or see more detailed budget information from the Budgets page.
Reviewing team spending
The Team Spend home page provides an overview of your team's spending, including:
- Tasks requiring your attention
- Total spending over the last 30 or 90 days, grouped by category
- Summaries of budgets, spend policies, and reimbursements
You can also invite team members or assign existing budgets from this page.
Reviewing individual budgets
Select Team Spend > Budgets from the left sidebar to view your allocated budgets and spending activity.
The Budgets page includes two tabs:
- Employee budgets: View existing budgets, spending limits, spend cycles, and assigned team members. Select a budget to review individual spending or add team members
- Team members: View each team member's assigned budgets and how much they've spent from each
You can also customize an individual team member's spending limit, edit budgets, or archive budgets as needed.
Using budgets as a team member
Team members can spend from their assigned budgets using their Mercury cards or by submitting reimbursements.
They can also manage which budgets their expenses are assigned to:
- Transactions: Review a transaction and reassign it to another budget from the Transactions page. If the reassignment would cause the new budget to exceed its limit, admin approval is required
- Reimbursements: Select which budget a reimbursement should draw from when submitting a request
Managing budgets on mobile
You can view and use budgets in the Mercury mobile app for iOS and Android, but budgets can't be created or edited from mobile. To create or edit budgets, use Mercury from a web browser.
Team members can use the mobile app to:
- View assigned budgets, remaining balances, and recent activity
- See which budget a transaction or reimbursement was assigned to
- Add or update budgets on eligible transactions and reimbursements, though some changes may require admin approval
- View budgets connected to their cards
Admins can also:
- View budgets and spending across team members
- Review team members' cards and connected budgets
- Assign budgets when issuing cards
- Add or update budgets on eligible team member transactions
FAQs
Can I change a budget's frequency after it's created?
No. You can edit other budget settings, but not its frequency. To change how often a budget recurs, you'll need to delete the existing budget and create a new one.
Can I customize an individual team member's spending limit?
Yes. Open the budget and select a team member to review their spending and recent transactions. Click Customize to change their spending limit for the current cycle or all future cycles.
Can I apply multiple categories to a budget?
No. You can set one default category per budget, which is automatically applied to transactions for accounting purposes.
You can still change the category on individual transactions. If a budget covers different types of expenses, consider leaving its default category unset.
How does Mercury decide which budget a transaction belongs to?
If a card has one budget, transactions are automatically assigned to it.
If a card has multiple budgets, Mercury first checks which budgets are eligible based on their available funds and spending controls. It then uses transaction details, including the merchant, merchant type, and amount, to choose the most relevant budget.
Mercury also considers previous transaction reassignments to improve future matching.
If no budget is eligible, the transaction is declined.
Can I reassign a transaction to another budget?
Yes. Open the transaction from the Transactions page and select a different budget from the details panel.
If the reassignment would cause the new budget to exceed its limit, an admin must approve the change before it takes effect.
*The Mercury Debit Cards are issued by Choice Financial Group and Column N.A., Members FDIC, pursuant to licenses from Mastercard®. The IO Card is issued by Patriot Bank, N.A., Member FDIC, pursuant to a license from Mastercard International Incorporated.