Purpose
The Expenses dashboard is where you review what employees have submitted, approve or reject it, correct mistakes, add an expense for someone who cannot, and see what has been paid. This article covers the employer view. Setup, permissions and how the money reaches payroll are in Setting Up Expense Management.
Who can do this: users whose role includes Manage Expenses for the employees concerned (Employee Access > Additional Information). Full Access can approve, reject, edit and delete. View can open the dashboard and see details only; the action buttons are greyed out. When the module is switched on, only the Employer Admin has Full Access; Reporting Managers approve only after their role is granted it.
The dashboard
Open Expenses. The dashboard has four tabs. Each row is one expense with its employee, dates, category, description, amount, and the AI's Policy Compliant, Fraud Detected and AI Remarks columns.
| Tab | What is in it | Extra columns |
|---|---|---|
| Pending | Submitted expenses waiting for a decision, oldest first. If AI automatic approval is on, only expenses the AI did not clear appear here. | — |
| Approved | Approved expenses not yet paid. This includes expenses already attached to a pay run that has not reached its pay date. | Approved By, Approved Date |
| Paid | Expenses paid through payroll. | Paid Date |
| Rejected | Rejected expenses with the reviewer's comment. The employee sees the same comment. | Rejected By, Rejected Date, Comments |
Above the table: search by employee or category, filters for category, amount range and date range, and Export, which downloads an Excel workbook with one sheet per tab.
Expenses approved by the AI show System in Approved By.
Acting on pending expenses
Approve, Reject, Edit and Delete are available on the Pending tab only. On the other tabs the Actions menu offers View. Select several rows with the checkboxes to approve or reject in bulk; the action bar appears at the bottom.
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| View | Opens Expense Details: date of expense and submission, status, category, amount, description, Policy Compliant?, AI Remarks, the receipt (or "No receipt uploaded"), and the approval, rejection or paid dates. |
| Approve | Moves the expense to Approved. It will be added to the next Regular or Special pay run that includes this employee, as part of their non-taxable Reimbursements line. Approval is all-or-nothing; there is no partial amount. |
| Reject | Opens Rejection Remarks: "Please provide remarks explaining the reason for rejecting this expense." The Reject button stays disabled until you type a comment (maximum 100 characters). The employee sees the comment on their Rejected tab and can submit a corrected expense. |
| Edit | Opens the expense form so you can correct the date, category, amount or distance, description or receipt before deciding. |
| Delete | Asks "Are you sure you want to delete this expense?" then removes it. Prefer Reject with a comment so the employee knows what happened. |
Warning: Delete is permanent and is the only way an expense leaves the system. If you need to remove an expense that is already Approved, do it before the pay run that includes it is approved; deleting an expense does not remove a Reimbursements amount from a paycheck that has already been finalised.
Read the AI Remarks before overriding a flag. A Policy Compliant: No or Fraud Detected: Yes result explains itself in the remarks (a receipt total that does not match the amount, a duplicate receipt, an item the policy excludes). Your decision, and the remarks, stay on the record.
Adding an expense on an employee's behalf
Use Add Expense when an employee cannot submit themselves, for example a paper receipt handed in on their last day.
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Employee Name | Search and select. Only employees your role can access are listed. |
| Date of Expense | Required. MM/DD/YYYY. |
| Category | Required. One of your configured categories. |
| Distance in miles | Shown instead of Amount when the category is Mileage. Maximum 999.99. The Mileage Rate field fills in automatically and the amount is calculated. |
| Amount | Required for all other categories. Maximum 99,999.99. |
| Description | Required. Maximum 100 characters. |
| Receipt | Optional. PDF, DOC or image; maximum 5 MB. Without a receipt the AI cannot check policy compliance. |
Click Save to place it in Pending for normal review, or Save & Approve to place it straight in Approved.
What happens after approval
Approval queues the expense; payroll pays it.
- The next Regular or Special pay run you prepare that includes the employee picks up every approved expense they have, regardless of expense date, and sums them into one Reimbursements earning. The expense stays under Approved.
- On the morning of that run's pay date (08:30), UZIO marks the expense Paid and records the pay date.
- If the employee is never in a pay run (not on UZIO Payroll, a 1099 Contractor, or already terminated), the expense stays in Approved. Reimburse outside UZIO and delete it. Details: How reimbursement reaches the paycheck.
Notifications
Reviewers with payroll administration access receive one email a day at 08:30, Expense Summary Report – [date], listing yesterday's AI-approved expenses and everything still pending. Employees receive their own daily summary of status changes. There is no email per approval or rejection, so an employee who wants to know immediately should check their Expense dashboard.
Common problems
An expense the AI should have approved is sitting in Pending
Automatic approval needs all three: the AI approval switch is on, Policy Compliant is Yes, and Fraud Detected is No. Anything in the Miscellaneous category always waits for a person. Open View and read the AI Remarks for the reason.
The employee says they were never told it was rejected
There is no rejection email. The rejection and your comment appear on the employee's Rejected tab, and in their next daily summary email. Point them there.
The employee was paid but the expense still shows Approved
Paid is set at 08:30 on the pay date, not when payroll is approved. If the pay date has passed and it is still Approved, check that the employee was actually in that run and that the run was a Regular or Special payroll. Contractor and adjustment runs do not pay expenses.
I approved the wrong amount
Before the pay run is approved: delete the expense (or edit it if it is still pending) and refresh the pay run so the Reimbursements line recalculates. After the pay run is approved: the paycheck stands; recover or top up the difference on the next run through payroll, and correct the expense record separately.
Everything in the Actions menu is greyed out
Your role has View access to Manage Expenses, not Full Access. Ask the Employer Admin to change the role in Manage Users.
Related articles
- Setting Up Expense Management — permissions, AI approval setting, categories, mileage rate, payroll behaviour
- Manager view: Approving Team Expense Reports
- Employee view: Submitting and Tracking Your Expenses
- Processing a Regular Payroll
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