Workplace
Expense approval is either a bottleneck or a rubber stamp, and the cause is the same.
One permission does both jobs. So either finance approves everything — and cannot possibly know whether a client dinner was legitimate — or a manager holds the ability to mark money as paid, which is not their job and not their risk.
The split
Two questions, asked of two people.
Whether a spend was legitimate is a question the manager can answer and finance cannot. Whether the money has actually gone out is a question finance can answer and the manager cannot.
So they are separate permissions. A manager can approve without holding reimbursement power, which is what lets approval sit close to the work without moving financial control there too.
Collapsing these into one permission is why expense approval either blocks on finance or becomes a rubber stamp.
- A draft is invisible, not just unsubmitted —
An unfinished claim does not appear on anybody's list and cannot be opened by an approver — so somebody can start one on Tuesday and finish it on Friday without being chased about it on Wednesday.
- Reimbursed means the money moved —
Approving a claim does not mark it paid. It stages the amount against the next payroll run — whichever that turns out to be, even if next month's does not exist yet — and the claim only says reimbursed once that run is actually paid. The gap between approved and paid is where employees chase finance for six weeks, and this is the page's whole point.
- A claim is many lines, each with its own bill —
Not one amount and one attachment. Category, date, merchant and receipt per item, which is how expenses are actually incurred.
- They can attach a missing bill without recalling it —
Every other field freezes at submit; the receipt slot stays open, because the real flow is a manager asking for the bill and the employee supplying it.
- Or pull the whole claim back —
A recalled claim returns to draft and disappears from the approver's queue rather than being argued about in it.
- Rejection carries a reason —
So a resubmission fixes the actual problem rather than guessing at it.
- A queue, not an inbox —
Claims sit somewhere with a state, which is the difference between a backlog you can see and one you discover.
What people ask
Mostly about who holds which power.
›Can a manager mark an expense as paid?
Not unless you give them the reimbursement permission. They are separate by design.
›Does it read receipts automatically?
No. The receipt is attached to the claim and read by a person. We are not going to claim extraction here that we have not built.
›Are expenses reimbursed through payroll?
By default yes, as its own line on the payslip rather than folded into a generic adjustment — and the claim tracks through to reimbursed when that run is paid. Paying outside payroll is available where you need it.
›Who approves — the manager or finance?
Whichever you configure: the manager, finance, or the manager with finance as a backstop when no manager resolves. And nobody can approve their own claim, including through a delegation they are holding.
›What happens to a rejected claim?
It carries the reason, so the person fixes the actual problem rather than guessing at it.
›Are there spend limits or category caps?
No. There is no policy engine, no per-category cap and no amount-threshold routing that sends bigger claims to somebody more senior. Approval judgement is human, which is a fair design and a real limit.
›Does it handle mileage, per-diems or advances?
No — a claim is receipted spend. Mileage, per-diem and cash advances are all absent.
›Multiple currencies?
A claim records its currency and nothing converts between them. Worth knowing before somebody travels.
Book a demo
Approve one without being able to pay it.
Give somebody approval and not reimbursement, then watch where the claim stops.