Opening an expense to review the details

A full tour of the expense detail view: the receipt, employee info, cost breakdown, the activity timeline, and how a company approval flow changes what you see before you decide.

When you open an expense from the HR queue, everything you need to make a decision is on one screen: who submitted it, what they claimed, the cost breakdown, the receipt, and a timeline of what has happened so far. This article walks through where each piece lives, how to read the activity timeline, and how a company approval flow changes the review process, so you can review the full picture before you approve, decline, or request changes.

Open an expense

In Expenses, select any row in the queue to open its detail view. There is nothing extra to click: the whole row is the target, and the view opens over the table so you keep your place. Close it to return to the same filtered, sorted queue.

At the top you see the expense type as the heading (Expense Upload, Purchase, or Adjusted by System) with a status badge next to it, and the expense ID just underneath. The ID is handy to quote if you ever contact your CLVR contact about a specific expense.

The sidebar: context for your decision

The sidebar gathers the background you need, top to bottom:

• Employee Details shows the Name and Email of the person who submitted the expense.
• Expense Status is where you assign reviewers while the expense is still open. If no one has been assigned yet, you see an Assign approvers prompt; once approvers are added, it lists who still needs to approve. This card disappears once the expense is fully approved or declined.
• Approval flow steps appear instead when the expense follows a set approval flow, showing each step (for example Manager, then HR) and who is expected at each one. Hover a step to see the reviewers and where things stand.
• Expense Timeline lists the history of the expense in order.

The main column: what was claimed

For an uploaded expense report, the main column shows the claim itself:

• Report Details: the Date, Category, and Organization ID of the provider.
• Cost Summary: the Receipt cost (incl. VAT), the cost excluding VAT, and how much is Deducted from allowance, plus anything Not reimbursed. For full detail on every line, see reading the expense cost breakdown.
• Attached Files: each receipt the employee uploaded.

Select any file under Attached Files to open it in a new tab. The original tab stays exactly where it was, so you can read the receipt and come back without losing your place.

See the receipt side by side

On a very wide screen (around 1600px and above), an expense report that has receipt files opens with a receipt preview pane beside the details. The details stay on the left and the receipt fills the right, so you can compare the claim against the receipt without opening a separate tab. On narrower screens the layout stacks, and you open receipts from Attached Files instead.

Read the expense timeline

The Expense Timeline card is the running record of everything that has happened to the expense, laid out in plain language so you can see exactly what happened before you act. It sits in the sidebar alongside the employee details and the review status, listing each event in order with the date it happened. It is the quickest way to understand why an expense is in its current status.

The card appears for uploaded expense reports and benefit purchases. Entries that were Adjusted by System have no approval history, so they do not show the card. If nothing has happened yet beyond the basics, you may see No events recorded yet.

What each event tells you

Depending on what the expense has been through, you may see:

• Submission. The first event, showing who submitted it and what kind of expense it is: an expense report, a benefit purchase, or a manual entry.
• Feedback requested. When someone asked the employee for feedback before approving, the line names who asked and quotes a short snippet of the message.
• Feedback requested by AI. If automatic review asked for a clearer receipt or more detail, the line is labelled as coming from AI and quotes the message.
• Resubmission. When the employee fixed the issue and submitted the report again.
• Approver decisions. For each reviewer who has acted: approved, declined, or asked for changes to the expense report.
• AI decisions. When automatic review approved or declined the expense on its own.

Using the timeline before you act

Read the timeline from the top before making a decision. It answers the questions that usually come up in the queue:

• Has anyone already reviewed this? Look for approver decisions and AI decisions further down the list.
• Why is it back in front of me? A feedback or change request followed by a resubmission tells you the employee responded and the expense is waiting again.
• Was this handled automatically? An AI approved or AI declined line means automatic review made the call. If you need to change it, you can revert that decision (see reverting an AI decision).

The timeline only shows decisions that still stand. If an AI decision was reverted, it drops off the list, so what you see is the current, accurate history.

How a company approval flow changes the review

Most expenses are reviewed by approvers you add by hand from the Expense Status card. When your company has set up an approval flow for a benefit or category, that flow takes over: it decides who reviews the expense, in what order, and how the decision moves from one group to the next. On a flow-driven expense the review looks different, and the manual add-approver controls disappear.

How you can tell a flow is active

When an approval flow drives the expense, the sidebar Expense Status card no longer shows the box for picking approvers. Instead it shows the flow as an ordered list of steps connected top to bottom, with the note "This expense uses the company approval flow. Steps are connected in order."

In the expense queue itself, the status pill reads APPROVAL FLOW 2/3, telling you which step the flow is on out of how many in total.

Reading the steps

Each step is one approval group, shown in the order the flow runs them, for example Manager, then HR, then Finance. (Other possible group labels are Salary and any custom group your company defined.) Under each group name you see the reviewers expected for that step.

A small coloured dot sits next to each step:

• Orange: this step is active and waiting for a reviewer to respond.
• Green: this step is approved, and the connector below it turns green.
• Yellow: a reviewer at this step asked the employee for changes.
• Red: a reviewer at this step declined.
• Grey: this step has not started yet.

Hover any dot or step name to see a tooltip naming the reviewers, for example "Waiting for Anna Berg to respond" on the active step, or "Erik Lund will review this step when it is their turn" on a step that has not started.

How the flow moves between steps

The steps run strictly in order. Reviewers in an earlier step must decide before the reviewers in the next step are asked. While a step is active, only its reviewers can act; a later step stays grey until its turn.

When a step has more than one reviewer in the same group, the first one to approve carries the whole group. The others in that group are marked as skipped, and the flow advances to the next step automatically.

What finishes the flow

• Final approval. Once the last step approves, the whole expense is marked Approved and moves to reimbursement through payroll, the same as any other approved expense.
• A decline at any step. If any reviewer declines at any step, the whole expense is finalized as Declined straight away. Later steps are never asked. The employee can open the report to read the reason and resubmit.
• Changes requested. A reviewer can ask the employee for changes instead of approving or declining. The expense waits for the employee to adjust and resubmit before the flow continues.

While a flow is active the manual approver controls are hidden by design: the flow already defines who reviews and in what order, so there is nothing to add or remove. If you need a different set of reviewers for a particular benefit or category, that is a change to the approval flow itself rather than to a single expense. Ask your HR contact who manages approval flows in your company's settings.

Troubleshooting

• The sidebar looks bare. That is expected for an Adjusted by System entry, which shows only Employee Details. A normal submitted report shows the full sidebar.
• There is no Expense Status card. It is hidden once an expense is fully approved or declined, and it is replaced by the Approval flow steps when the expense follows an approval flow.
• No receipt preview appears beside the details. The side-by-side pane only shows on very wide screens for reports that have receipt files. On a smaller screen, open the receipt from Attached Files.
• A receipt link does nothing. It opens in a new browser tab, so check whether a new tab opened behind the current one, or whether a pop-up blocker held it back.
• The timeline card is missing. It does not appear on expenses that were adjusted by the system, since those have no approval history. Open an expense report or benefit purchase to see it.
• A timeline message looks cut off. Longer feedback and change-request notes are shortened to a short snippet in the timeline. Open the related change request in the expense to read the full text.
• An AI decision is not listed. Reverted AI decisions are removed from the timeline so the history reflects the current status.
• A flow step is green but the expense is not approved yet. That step's group has approved; the flow is now waiting on a later step. The expense is only Approved once the final step clears.
• A reviewer cannot respond. Only the active step can act. If their step is still grey, it is not their turn yet; if it is already green or red, the step is finished.
• I need different reviewers on this one expense. You cannot override a flow per expense. Adjust the approval flow in settings, or ask your HR contact to.