Trips and expenses are approved in the Team → Approvals queue. They are there as their own tabs too, when you want to handle only them.
How many steps the approval takes depends on the employer’s setting. By default there is one step.
Approve from the queue
Approvals is one prioritised queue where trips and expenses wait alongside working time and leave. The queue works with the same logic regardless of what the row concerns – see Approve working time.
A change in the trip’s status applies to its expenses too. You do not handle the trip and its expenses separately: when the trip moves from one status to another, its expenses move along. So check the rows before the decision, not after.
Bulk approval only applies to trips and expenses that have no notes. A row with a note always stays to be handled one by one.
When two-step approval is enabled
Two-step approval is off by default. Then you approve a submitted trip directly.
If the employer has enabled the setting Two-step approval, the trip must first be reviewed and only then approved. Approval without a review does not work – the order is enforced.
- The reviewer cannot be the traveller. You cannot review your own trip, even if you are a supervisor.
- A review is possible only for a submitted trip. A draft is not reviewed.
Export the data to payroll
Reports → Payroll export → Travel & expenses → Travel & expense export.
There are two formats: Lemonsoft (travel-claim CSV) and a generic pay-component CSV. The warnings tell you if an employee number or a pay component is missing or if the chosen format does not include receipts. Read the warnings before you export. See Export payroll data.
Set up the expense types
The expense type settings are under Settings → Travel & expenses → Expenses. There you find Allowance rates and Expense types.
For an expense type you define Code, Pay component, Income type, GL account, VAT and Tax treatment in export. The last one decides how the row appears in the data: Tax-free reimbursement, Taxable reimbursement or Not reported.
Fill in the pay component and the income type before the first export.
If something goes wrong
| Situation | What you see | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| Approval does not work | The trip is in the Submitted status | Two-step approval is enabled. Review the trip first, then approve. |
| You cannot review the trip | The trip is your own | The reviewer cannot be the traveller. Ask someone else to review it. |
| The review does not work | The trip is a Draft | Only a submitted trip can be reviewed. The employee submits it first. |
| Bulk approval skipped rows | Some rows stayed in the queue | They have notes. Handle them one by one. |
| The export warns | An employee number or a pay component is missing | Fill in the missing detail and export again. |
| Receipts are missing from the data | A warning about the format | The chosen format does not include receipts. Deliver the receipts separately if payroll needs them. |