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Expense lifecycle

In short​

An expense moves through five stages: it is created as a draft, submitted for approval, approved, posted to the general ledger in Business Central, and finally reimbursed to the employee (or reconciled against a company card). TEM handles the first three stages; the finance team handles the last two in Business Central.

Why it matters​

Each stage has a different owner and different tools. Employees work in the app or portal; approvers work in the portal or mobile approval view; finance works in Business Central. Understanding which stage an expense is in tells you who needs to act and where.

How it works​

Draft​

The employee creates an expense in the mobile app or web portal. SmartExtract reads the receipt and fills in date, amount, currency, and description automatically. The expense is saved as a draft - it is not yet visible to the approver.

Submitted​

The employee slides to submit (mobile) or clicks Submit (portal). The expense enters the approver's queue immediately. The expense cannot be edited while awaiting approval; the employee can withdraw it to make changes.

On submission, TEM screens the receipt for duplicates - matching on receipt number, date, and amount - and flags any possible duplicate to the approver before it reaches finance.

When the expense is part of an expense report, it shows Pending Report Approval in Business Central until the report itself is approved - see Expense reports.

Approved​

The approver reviews the expense details and receipt, then approves or rejects it. On approval, the expense becomes visible to the finance team in Business Central. If rejected, it returns to the employee as a draft with the rejection reason.

Approval routing is controlled by the Approval Workflow: the expense goes to the employee's assigned approver by default, or follows any custom Approval Policy set on the employee's profile.

Posted​

A Business Central user with posting permissions opens the approved expense in the expense list, adjusts GL accounts or dimensions if needed, and posts it. Posting creates a standard Business Central general journal entry - debit to the expense GL account, credit to the Balance Type account (employee payable or Company Card liability).

Reimbursed​

For employee-paid expenses, the finance team processes reimbursement via the payment journal, a payroll file export, or a vendor payment - each settles the open employee liability through a different journal, explained in Reimbursement journals. For company card expenses, the credit side of the entry settles against the card liability account when the card statement is paid.