Approve expenses
Approve, return or reject your team's expense claims, advance requests and retirements, and reduce a line before you approve.
Before you start
- Set up employees and supervisorsHR sets who reports to you. Only your direct reports' expenses come to you.
- Set up expensesHR and finance set the expense policy; its notes (missing receipts, caps, duplicates) are what you see on each document.
- Set up expense categories and typesHR sets the categories and expense types, with their limits, that your team claims against.
In this article
When someone in your team submits a claim, an advance request (requisition) or a retirement, it waits for you in the Approvals Inbox. You approve it, send it back to fix something, or reject it. After you approve, finance checks it and pays.
Who approves
- The employee's line manager. That's the person set as Reporting to on the employee's main job, or their main assigned supervisor. Set by HR in Set up employees and supervisors.
- A covering supervisor, while the main supervisor is away on leave, if HR has set one up.
- Anyone with the organisation-wide expense approval permission (for example the MD), for staff who have no line manager. Their inbox shows Your reach: Whole organisation.
Approval is one step: once you approve, the document goes straight to finance. You can never approve your own expense, or one you filed on someone else's behalf.
Steps
Open the Approvals Inbox
In the menu on the left, select Expense Approvals (in the manager menu) or Human Resources › Expense › Approvals Inbox. You can also select Approvals inbox on Team expenses.
- Awaiting your decision (how many, and their total) and the Oldest submission.
- Your reach: Your direct reports, or Whole organisation if you hold the organisation-wide approval permission.
- Search by expense number or employee.
- Refresh reloads the list.
When nothing is waiting you'll see Nothing waiting on you. Each waiting document shows the employee, the number, the amount and when it was submitted, with Approve, Return and Reject buttons.
Open the document and check it
Select a document to open it. A yellow Awaiting your approval box appears at the top. Check:
- the lines and receipts under Lines & receipts;
- Policy findings, such as a missing receipt, a cap exceeded or a possible duplicate;
- Notes from the employee and the Conversation (you can ask a question there).
Reduce a line if you need to
If one line is too high or shouldn't be paid, select Reduce on that line. In Reduce or disallow line, enter the New amount (it can't be more than what was claimed; enter 0 to disallow it), pick a reason (Not per policy, Missing receipt, Duplicate, Personal expense or Other) and add an optional comment. You'll see Line adjusted.
You can only reduce a line, never raise it.
Decide
At the top of the document (or on the row in the inbox), select:
- Approve: a comment is optional. You'll see Approved. and it goes to finance.
- Return for correction (Return in the inbox): the employee fixes it and resubmits. A comment is required.
- Reject: closes it. A comment is required.
What happens next
- Approved: finance verifies it and pays: see Verify expenses and Pay out expenses.
- Returned: the employee sees your reason, fixes it and resubmits: see Track your expenses. It comes back to your inbox.
- Rejected: it's closed and nothing is paid.
Follow your team's documents after you decide on View your team's expenses. For all your manager tasks, see Managers overview.