Your first expense

Use this page to confirm the end-to-end configuration is working. The goal is to post one test expense and verify it lands in the correct GL account.

Before you start

All setup steps 01–09 must be complete. You need:

• One test employee with a portal login, an assigned approver, and an Employee Profile
• At least one Expense Category with a Posting Group linked to a real GL account
• An approver who can log in to the web portal
• A Business Central user with permission to post expenses

Steps

1. Submit a test expense

Log in to the TEM web portal or mobile app as the test employee.

1. Create a new expense - enter any amount, select the expense category, and attach a receipt (a photo of any document is enough for a test)
2. Fill in the required fields and submit

Check: The expense disappears from the employee's active expense list - it has moved to the approver's queue and is no longer editable by the employee.

2. Approve the expense

Log in to the web portal as the approver assigned to the test employee.

1. Open the Approval section
2. Locate the submitted expense and review it
3. Approve it

Check: The expense disappears from the approver's approval queue - it has moved to Business Central and is now visible in the Ready for posting list there.

3. Post the expense in Business Central

In Business Central, open the Expense Management expense list. The approved expense appears here.

1. Open the expense record
2. Confirm the GL account and dimensions are correct
3. Post it

Check: Business Central creates a general journal entry. Verify:

• Debit is on the expense GL account linked to the expense category's Posting Group
• Credit is on the Balance Type account - typically the Employee payable account configured in the Posting Group

4. Process a test reimbursement

From the Business Central expense list, run the reimbursement process for the test employee.

Check: A payment journal entry or export file is created depending on your configured reimbursement method. Confirm the amount matches the posted expense.

Common issues

Symptom	Likely cause
Expense never appears in the approver's queue	No approver assigned on the Employee Card, or Approval Policy is misconfigured
Approver can't see the portal approval section	Portal login is missing or the employee's portal login is not linked to the correct Business Central user
Posting fails in Business Central	No Posting Group on the expense category, or the GL account in the Posting Group doesn't exist
GL entry debits the wrong account	Wrong Posting Group assigned to the expense category
Reimbursement run skips the employee	Reimbursement method requires a field (Vendor No. or Alt. No.) that is not set on the Employee Card
Expense is auto-approved without going to approver	Auto-approve threshold in the Approval Policy is set higher than the test amount

Next steps

Once this test passes, your TEM installation is ready for user onboarding. See Roles for what to communicate to each user type.