Manage and approve expenses

View and organize expenses

The Manage expenses page gives you a single view of every expense submitted by your employees, organized into tabs based on where each expense is in the review workflow.

There are four tabs in Expenses:

• Pending approval — expenses waiting for your approval.
• Pending others' approval — expenses currently with another approver, so you can see where things are stuck.
• Pending reimbursement — approved expenses that are ready to be paid.
• All expenses — every expense across every status, for search, audits, and reporting.

Expenses are grouped by employee by default. Each group header shows the employee's name and total amount, and you can expand or collapse a group. In Pending reimbursement, groups are collapsed by default so you can quickly see who's owed money before drilling in.

You can switch grouping using the table settings icon above the table, to group by Expense group instead of employee — useful when you want to see expenses the way they were originally submitted together, rather than by person.

The table is designed for review at a glance: merchant, category, entity, submission date, purchase date, alerts, and amount are visible directly in the table without opening a row.

Customize columns

Columns vary slightly by tab — Pending others' approval adds Approvals and Next approver, and All expenses adds an Expense status column. Click the Submission date column header to sort oldest-first or newest-first.

You can also customise the table columns to select which columns are visible on each tab.

Changes are only applied to your user, if you clear browser data or change device, the columns are reset to defaults.

Search expenses

You can use the search box to find expenses via employee, merchant, category, custom field, description, and more.

Filters and alerts

Use Add filter to narrow the list. Depending on the tab, you can filter by entity, assigned to, expense status, category, employee, group ID, and payable (Pending reimbursement only).

The Alerts filter lets you quickly find expenses that need extra attention, for example, a possible duplicate expense. Set it to Yes to show only flagged expenses, or No to hide them. Alerts also show as an icon directly in the table and, where relevant, at the top of an expense's side panel.

Pending others' approval

This tab adds two columns so you can track expenses that are assigned to someone else.

This tab allows you to group expenses by the next approver or filter, so you can see all the expenses per approver.

• Approvals — shows progress as a fraction (for example, "1/3"). Click or hover to see the full approval chain — each approver's name, and whether they've approved, are pending, or are next in line.
• Next approver — shows who needs to act next.

Expense group statuses

Expense groups can have one of the following statuses that describe their current state:

• Pending Approval — The group is awaiting approval on the expenses included in it.
• Pending Reimbursement — Settlement for the expense group is still pending.
• Processing Reimbursement — Payment of the expense group is currently being processed.
• Reimbursed — Payment of the group is completed.
• Reimbursement Failed — Payment to the employee failed. Failures may result from missing bank account details, insufficient funds in the payer's account, etc.
• Marked as Reimbursed — The expense was paid outside of Tipalti.
• Rejected — All expenses in the group were rejected.

Row actions

Hovering over a row reveals an Edit icon and a 3-dot menu, so you can act on a single expense without opening the side panel. Options vary by status:

• On a Pending approval row: Approve, Reject.
• On a Pending reimbursement row: Reimburse, Mark as reimbursed, Delete.
• On a Failed row: View reimbursement group, Mark as reimbursed, Delete.

View and edit an expense

Click any row to open the expense in the side panel. This is where you review the full details before deciding what to do with it, letting you:

• View receipts: See the attached receipt or supporting document for the expense.
• Validate expense coding: Check the category, entity, and other coding details are correct.
• Review alerts and policy violations: See any flags on the expense, such as a possible duplicate, before you act on it.
• Edit fields: Click the Edit icon (top right of the panel) to correct coding or other fields, for example category or tax code. Changes you make are recorded in the expense audit log.
• More info: View additional details about the submitter (e.g., role, department) and the expense (e.g., group ID, reimbursement ID).
• Approve or reject expenses: Make your decision directly from the panel, once you've reviewed everything above.

Approve expenses one by one

To approve, you can:

• Click a row to open the expense in the side panel, review the details, and click Approve.
• Use the row's 3-dot menu to click Approve directly, without opening the panel.

When you approve an expense from the side panel, the next expense in your queue loads automatically, so you can keep moving through your list without returning to the table each time.

Approve multiple expenses

To bulk approve, hover over a row to reveal a checkbox, or select the checkbox in the table header to select every expense on the page. Select the expenses you want to approve, then click Approve selected.

You don't have to approve a whole group at once — select just some of the expenses within an employee's group to partially approve it. The rest stay in Pending approval until you're ready to act on them.

Reject an expense

To reject an expense:

• Click a row to open it in the side panel, review the details, then click Reject.
• Or use the row's 3-dot menu and click Reject directly, without opening the panel.

The expense's status changes to Rejected, and the employee is notified so they can correct and resubmit it if needed. As with approving, rejecting from the side panel automatically loads the next expense in your queue.

Delete expenses

You can permanently delete eligible expenses from the Pending reimbursement tab, and delete expenses with a failed reimbursement from the All expenses tab (filter by expense status: Reimbursement failed) in the Tipalti Hub.

Select one or multiple expenses to delete, then from the side panel or the row's 3-dot menu, click Delete.

Deleting an expense is permanent. The employee will be notified that their expense has been rejected, and deleted expenses can't be restored. Expenses that have already been synced to your ERP must be deleted there.

Export expenses

When you bulk select expenses, you can export to download expense data as a CSV file. You can export expenses or just the receipts, matching your filters:

• Export expenses — the expenses currently shown, for a quick, small download.
• Export receipts — just the receipt files, useful when you need to compile supporting documentation for an audit or a specific query.

Exports respect any filters you've applied, so you can narrow the list first (e.g., by entity or date range) before exporting.

To approve/ reject expenses:

To make sure employees receive their reimbursements in the next payroll, make sure to approve the expense group at least 9 business days before the payroll date.

You'll also receive timely push notifications when expenses are pending approval. The reminder links to the relevant expenses in the Pending approval tab, saving time and ensuring employees get reimbursed on time.

Approval reminders are available for both Android and iOS. To receive reminders, you'll need to allow push notifications from the Tipalti app in your device settings.