Approving and reimbursing expenses
Whoever holds the expense permission approves, rejects and marks the company's expenses reimbursed. A direct manager without that permission sees the screen, but today it doesn't load.
In Expense management expenses are reviewed, receipts checked and decisions made. Approving doesn’t pay anyone: the reimbursement is marked afterwards, and only by whoever holds the company’s expense permission.
Before you start
Who decides. Whoever holds the company’s expense permission (in the default roles, HR, plus the administrator) decides on the whole company’s expenses and is the only one who can Reimburse and change the Categories and the Policy. Nobody decides on their own expenses, except the administrator. Orquiva’s rule is the same as for time off: a direct manager also decides on their team’s expenses with no special permission. But for expenses, today, the screen doesn’t let them.
Without the expense permission, the screen doesn't load
If someone reports to you, Expense management shows up in your menu and Home counts their expenses under Waiting for your approval. But if your role doesn’t hold the expense permission (the default Manager role doesn’t), the screen opens on Could not load this and You are not allowed to perform this action., and Retry doesn’t fix it. You can’t approve or reject from there. In the meantime, HR or the administrator decides on your team’s expenses: let them know there are expenses waiting. If the administrator adds the expense permission to your role, the screen loads, but you then decide on the whole company’s expenses, not just your team’s.
Nobody is notified of a new expense. Submitting an expense sends no notification. It shows up in the To approve tab and in the Pending requests counter.
There are no drafts. An expense is submitted when it is created and arrives as Open.
Expenses is a plan add-on: if your company doesn’t have it, the screen doesn’t appear. See Billing, plan and modules.
Reviewing and deciding
- Open Expense management and stay on the To approve tab. You can filter by status and by month.
- Open an expense with View detail: amount, category, date, description, person and receipt.
- Check the receipt. If there isn’t one, you’ll see No receipt attached.
- To approve it, select Approve, set the Reimbursement date in the Approve expense dialog and confirm. The date is required.
- To turn it down, select Reject. The Rejection reason is optional, but it is what the person sees next to the expense.
Approving by hand doesn’t check the receipt. If you approve one without the receipt the policy requires, or over its category’s cap, it shows up in the Expense report, under Expenses approved against policy.
A rejection can come back once
The person can Appeal a Rejected expense: it returns to your queue as Open, on the same line. They can only do it once; the second rejection is final. When you approve, the person gets an inbox notification. When you reject, no notification goes out: they see it when they check their expenses.
What the person can change
While the expense is Open, its author can edit the amount, date, category and description, replace the receipt or delete it. Nobody else can edit it, not even an administrator. Once approved or rejected, the expense is fixed; the one exception is that a receipt can still be added to an expense approved without one.
Reimbursing
Your company pays the money through its own channels: Orquiva doesn’t make payments or pass them to payroll. Once the payment is made, whoever holds the expense permission opens the Approved expense and selects Reimburse. The expense becomes Reimbursed. The Awaiting reimbursement counter adds up what has been approved but not yet paid.
Policy and limits
The Policy tab sets three values for the whole organization: Auto-approve under, Require receipt above and Monthly limit per employee. An expense below the threshold is approved automatically on submission, unless it is missing a required receipt. Each category can also have its own Max per receipt and Max per month.
When an expense is created or edited, Orquiva also rejects amounts over €50,000 and dates in the future or more than a year back. An expense with the same person, day, category and amount as another isn’t rejected: the person is asked whether it’s another receipt, and it’s saved if they confirm. Two identical expenses in your queue can be two real receipts (two parking tickets on the same day).
Statuses
| Status | What it means | Who acts |
|---|---|---|
| Open | Submitted, waiting for a decision | Whoever holds the expense permission (a direct manager without it can't, see above) |
| Approved | Approved, with a reimbursement date | Whoever holds the expense permission marks it reimbursed |
| Rejected | Turned down | The person can appeal it once |
| Reimbursed | Paid | Nobody: it is closed |
If something goes wrong
Expense management says “Could not load this.” Your role doesn’t hold the expense permission. Being a direct manager isn’t enough for the screen to load. Ask HR or the administrator to decide on your team’s expenses, or ask the administrator to give you the permission, bearing in mind it covers the whole company. See Roles and permissions.
It won’t let me approve. The Reimbursement date is missing, and it is required. Set it in the dialog.
I rejected an expense that was fine. You can’t reopen it from your side. Ask the person to appeal it: it will come back to your queue once.
A small expense was approved without going through me. It was below the Auto-approve under threshold and had any required receipt. That is the organization’s policy.
What the other side sees
The same feature, from the other side:
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