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Approve, decline, and manage expense claims

Available for the following plans: Employment Plus, Employment Unlimited
Available for the following HR classic plans: Premium, Platinum
Available for the following User Access levels: Manager, Admin

The Expense Management feature allows you to review and approve employee-submitted expenses. You can do this either individually or in bulk, and can also approve expenses that require additional information before being processed. Lastly, you can also mark expenses as paid, download a CSV file of your claims, edit the information provided, and delete any unnecessary submissions.

Warning

Only admins, owners, and users with Custom Security Setting permissions will be able to process expenses created before the 12/11/2024. Managers, admins, owners, and users with Custom Security Setting permissions will be able to process expenses created after the 12/11/2024..

Getting started

Add your expense categories to your Payroll Classic platform

Warning

You will need to add expense categories in your Payroll Classic platform first for items to sync to your HR platform. See this article for instructions on how to add expense categories to your Payroll Classic platform or watch this video.

Daily activities 

Filter employee expenses

  1. Click the Pay menu.
  2. Under Expenses, click the Expenses Management submenu.
  3. Choose from the following filters:
    • Employee.
    • Category.
    • Status.
    • Date range.
  4. Click the Search button.

View an employee's expense

  1. Click the Pay menu.
  2. Under Expenses, click the Expenses Management submenu.
  3. Click the Actions dropdown button for the expense you want to view.
  4. Click View/Edit to see the expense claim details on your screen.

Approve an expense: Individually

For HR and Payroll Classic connected organisations, an expense will sync to your payroll platform once it has been approved in Employment Hero. It appears on the Expense Management page and will be paid in the next pay run. Once an expense is processed and the payslips are published, the expense locks in Employment Hero.

  1. Click the Pay menu.
  2. Under Expenses, click the Expenses Management submenu.
  3. Click the Actions button for the expense you want to approve.
  4. Click Approve.
  5. In the confirmation pop-up, click the Approve button.

Approve expenses: In bulk

For HR and Payroll Classic connected organisations, an expense will sync to your payroll platform once it has been approved in Employment Hero. It appears on the Expense Management page and will be paid in the next Pay Run. Once an expense is processed and the payslips are published, the expense locks in Employment Hero.

  1. Click the Pay menu.
  2. Under Expenses, click the Expenses Management submenu.
  3. Tick the checkboxes for the expenses you want to approve.
  4. Click the Actions dropdown button below the text "Expenses Management".
  5. Click the Approve Selected button.
  6. In the confirmation pop-up, click the Approve button.

If you are an HR and Payroll Classic user, once the expense claim has been submitted it will sync to your Payroll Classic platform, where it will be included in your Pay Run. The option to manually mark an expense as paid is still available. 

Ask for further information

  1. Click the Pay menu.
  2. Under Expenses, click the Expenses Management submenu.
  3. Click the expense you need.
  4. Click the Actions dropdown button.
  5. Click View/Edit.
  6. Click the Pending via Comment button.
  7. Enter a comment or question you would like to send to your employees.
     

    Important

    Once you have requested further information on the submitted expense claim, the expense claim will then move to a pending status automatically.

  8. Click the Send Comment button.

Decline an employee's expense: Individually

  1. Click the Pay menu.
  2. Under Expenses, click the Expenses Management submenu.
  3. Click the Actions dropdown button for the expense you want to decline.
  4. Click Decline.
  5. Enter the reason for declining the expense.
  6. Click the Decline expense button.

Decline employees' expenses: In bulk

  1. Click the Pay menu.
  2. Under Expenses, click the Expenses Management submenu.
  3. Tick the checkboxes for the expenses you want to decline.
  4. Click the Actions dropdown button below the text "Expenses Management".
  5. Click Decline Selected.
  6. Enter the reason for declining the expenses.
  7. Click the Decline expense button.

Mark an employee's expense as paid: Individually

  1. Click the Pay menu.
  2. Under Expenses, click the Expenses Management submenu.
  3. Click the Actions dropdown button for the expense you need.
  4. Click Mark as paid.
  5. Complete the Data of Payment field.
  6. Click the Mark as paid button

Mark employees' expenses as paid: In bulk

  1. Click the Pay menu.
  2. Under Expenses, click the Expenses Management submenu.
  3. Tick the checkboxes for the expenses you want to mark as paid.
  4. Click the Actions button below the text "Expenses Management".
  5. Click Mark Selected as Paid.
  6. Complete the Date of Payment field.
  7. Click the Mark as paid button

Editing and changing data

Edit an employee's expense

  1. Click the Pay menu.
  2. Under Expenses, click the Expenses Management submenu.
  3. Click the Actions dropdown button for the expense you want to edit.
  4. Click View/Edit.
  5. Make the required changes.
  6. Click the Save button.
  7. Click either the Decline expense, Pending via comment or Approve expense button.

Download employee expenses

  1. Click the Pay menu.
  2. Under Expenses, click the Expenses Management submenu.
  3. Tick the checkboxes for the expenses you want to download.
  4. Click the Actions button below the text "Expenses Management".
  5. Click Download CSV.

Removing data

Delete an expense

  1. Click the Pay menu.
  2. Under Expenses, click the Expenses Management submenu.
  3. Click the Actions dropdown button for the expense you want to edit.
  4. Click Delete.
  5. In the confirmation pop-up, click the Delete button.
     

Disable expense sync to payroll

  1. Click the Settings menu.
  2. Under Payroll Settings, click the Expense Categories submenu.
  3. Toggle the Sync expenses to payroll button off.
    screenshot of the expense categories page, with a highlight on the sync expenses to payroll toggle button
     

    Helpful Hint

    You have now disabled the option to sync your expenses to your Payroll Classic platform. The switch is grey when the sync option is disabled, as shown in the photo below. To enable the feature again, you can simply toggle the switch on.

    screenshot of the expense categories page, with the sync expenses option off

Further information

Expense claims status meanings

Below are the meanings of the different expense claim statuses:

  • Submitted - the employee has submitted a request for an expense claim.
  • Processing - an intermediate state after an expense has been created, and a manager has approved/declined the expense. Here, it just means that the workflow is running essentially.
  • Pending - the approver has selected the option"Pending," requiring the employee to resubmit the request.
  • Approved - the expense claim has been approved but is waiting to be paid.
  • Paid - the employee has been paid the requested amount.
Helpful tips on using this feature

Below are a few points around who can approve an expense claim:

  • Primary and secondary managers can approve their reports for expense claims.
  • Users with admin access will also be able to approve claims.
  • An admin user cannot approve their own claims.
  • A user with owner access is the exception to this; they can approve their own claims and see all the claim information.
  • When an employee submits an expense claim for approval, only their Primary Manager will receive the notification. If the Primary Manager is on leave, the notification will automatically be sent to the Secondary Manager instead.

  Don't have access to this feature? Contact our friendly sales team here if you’d like to upgrade your account to gain access to Expense Management with Employment Hero today.

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