Approve a reimbursement report

Reimbursement workflows allow finance teams to track, review, and approve reimbursable employee expenses. An Owner or Admin can assign one Approver for their Organization to manage all reimbursements

When a user submits an out-of-pocket expense report, the Approver will be alerted to review the new submission via email and notification activity feed. From the Accounting section in the web app, the Approver can review, reject, approve, and keep track of which reimbursements have been reimbursed. All reports that are “Pending Review” will automatically display at the top of the list.

Watch the video to see a step-by-step demo of how reimbursements.

Reviewing a Reimbursement

1. To review a reimbursement  report from Accounting select Review Report. Then select the report you wish to review.
   
   

Note: You can filter expense reports by date, employee, and expense status.

2. To view receipt attachments and notes on each expense line item, select the > (caret) to the right of the expense.
   
   
3. To approve or reject an expense, navigate to the Report Details page and use the checkboxes on the left side to select the expenses you’d like to approve or reject. 

4. A pop-up bar will appear at the bottom of the list, and you can choose to Approve or Reject the expenses you’ve selected. When you approve or reject an expense, the Amount Requested and Amount Approved in the top right corner will automatically update to reflect the new status. After a report status has changed to Reviewed or Rejected, the status can not be changed back to Pending Review. 

5. After you have approved and/or rejected all expenses in the report, the overall report status will automatically update in the All Expenses list.
   
   

Note: Submitter expense report statuses include: 

6. When you change the status of an expense report, the submitter will receive an email alert and a notification in their Notification Center letting them know their report has been reviewed. 

Marking reimbursed expenses as “Paid”

1. Once an expense report has been reviewed, you can mark a report as “Paid.”
   
   
2. To update multiple expense reports, you can use the checkboxes on the report list and select “Mark as Paid” in the pop-up message.
3. Once confirmed, the report status will be updated to reflect the change.

Note: At this time, Extend does not support remitting employees within the app. 

Downloading expense reports

You can download expense report data at any time from the All Reports tab.

1. First, refine your export by using the filters to filter by report status, date submitted, and org member.
   
   
2. Click the Download Reports button at the top right of the list view.
   
   
3. Select Download, and the reports will export to a .CSV file.

The downloaded .CSV file includes the details needed for easy uploading to payroll systems for remittance. Fields available in the export include:

• Date a report was submitted 
• Employee Name
• Report name
• Amount submitted
• Amount approved
• Report status 

FAQs

1. Who can use the out-of-pocket expenses feature?
Users must belong to an Org in Extend to create and manage out-of-pocket expense reports. Learn more about how to create an Org.

2. Who can review and approve expense reports in Extend?
Only the Approver, who is designated by the Org Owner or Admin, can review submitted out-of-pocket expense reports. There can only be one Approver per Org, and this role can be reassigned at any time.

3. What happens if an Org has not yet set an Approver?
Org members can still submit out-of-pocket expense reports. Once an Org Owner or Admin assigns an Approver for their Org, this user will have access to all submitted out-of-pocket-expense reports to review.

4. What happens to an expense report after an Org Member leaves their Org in Extend?
All submitted out-of-pocket expense reports will remain in the Expenses section if a user leaves an Org. If the user who left was the designated Approver, the Org Owner or Admin will need to assign a new Approver for their Org.

5. As the Approver, can I view and manage my Org’s out-of-pocket expense reports from the mobile app?
No, you can only manage out-of-pocket expense reports from the Web version of the Extend app.

6. Can I download individual expense reports with itemized line items for each expense?
At this time, you cannot export the itemizations from a single expense report. The expense report will export as one line item with the following details: Date Submitted, Employee Name, Report Name, Amount Submitted, Amount Approved, and Report Status. We will launch a more comprehensive export later in the beta phase.

*Out-of-pocket expense management is not available through all issuers. If you're not sure if you have this feature, please contact customer support.