Approve Expenses in Chrome River

Users with appropriate permissions may approve expense reports inside Chrome River and via email. For details on the way expenses are routed for approval in Chrome River, see Expense Approval Routing Process.

Access Reports Awaiting Approval

If you are part of the approval process and have items awaiting your approval, you will see a yellow notification bar on the Dashboard. Click one of the numbers to be taken to the Approval Dashboard.

You may also access your approvals by clicking the MENU button in the upper left corner. The yellow circle shows the number of approvals waiting for you.

The Approvals Needed list displays all the expenses awaiting your approval, including the Report Owner, Report Name, Report ID, Submit Date, Amount Spent and Currency Code.

Choose a Report to Approve

Quick Search

1. Click the magnifying glass icon to quickly search by Expense Owner or Report ID.

2. Use the drop-down list to select Expense Owner or Report ID, then begin typing in the search box.

• For Expense Owner searches, you may also search by title
• To search by Report ID you must enter the complete ID number.

3. At the top of the results you will see a description of your search parameters.

4. Your search results will persist—even after reports are opened and closed—until the search is canceled or you exit the Approval Dashboard.

Sort and Filter Approvals

Use the SORT button in the upper right-hand corner to sort the list by Date, Last Name, Amount, Validated or Assigned Date.

• Validated allows you to group all the expenses that have warnings.

The SORT button also gives you access to filters. You may filter on the various criteria determined by your organization. You can also create custom filters.

Hide Reviewing

If you are a member of a large group of approvers, use the HIDE REVIEWING filter to show only the reports in your Approvals lists that are not currently being reviewed by other approvers. If a report in the filtered list is opened by another reviewer, it will be removed from the list.

View Report Preview Information

To view report information from the Approvals Needed list, click the report name. The report preview will populate on the right.

View the Report Owner's Profile

From the report preview, click the report owner's name in the preview to access his or her profile card.

Profile cards contain such details as expense owner title, email address and assigned roles. Click SEE MORE to view all the details.

The Approver Comments section of the user profile card allows approvers to share private comments about the user with each other. This feature can be used to provide details on the expense owner that give other approvers better context and help them assess user risk before approving any expense reports.

Approver comments are visible only to authorized approvers, who are granted permission using an AuthorizeUser rule. Approvers are not able to see comments on their own user profile card.

Report Preview Actions

The preview allows you to immediately approve or return an entire report. Click once on an expense report in the list to bring up a preview. If necessary, you can drag the slider on the right to scroll up or down.

Approve from the Preview

Clicking APPROVE from the report preview immediately approves all line items on the report. Once the approver has confirmed the approval and clicked the second APPROVE button, the entire report will move to the next step in the approval process.

If your organization has activated the Additional Approver feature, see Include an Additional Expense Approver to learn how to add a second approver to the report's routing process.

Return from the Preview

Clicking RETURN immediately rejects all line items on the report. Once the approver has entered the required note and clicked RETURN, the entire report will be sent back to the expense owner.

Other Preview Actions

Click the three dots icon to access other features from the preview screen.

• Open: Open the report to approve or return individual line items
• Tracking: See the report's complete path through the approval routing process
• PDF: Click to view various versions of the report's PDF report:
• Cover page only
• Full report
• Full report with notes and receipts
• Full report with just receipts
• View just receipts

View Report Line Items

Opening a report will allow you to approve or return line items individually rather than responding to the entire report at once.

Open Report

To open a report, double click on it in the Approvals list, single click its name in the preview, or click OPEN under the three dots menu item in the upper left-hand corner of the preview.

View Line Items

To view an individual line item, click the line item name.

View Pre-Approvals Attached to Line Items

If the expense you are approving has a linked pre-approval, you may view the details by clicking the PDF download button next to the name of the Applied Pre-Approval Report. This allows you to easily compare the original pre-approval to its associated expense report.

Use the Reconcile Feature to Keep Track of Line Item Approvals

Users with appropriate permissions will see a RECONCILE button at the top of each line item they have selected for review. You can use this feature to keep track of which line items you have reviewed and which still need attention, even after you have closed and reopened a report.

A green check indicates an item has been reviewed and approved.

A red arrow indicates an item has been reviewed and returned.

Click the UNRECONCILE button if the item still needs further review. When you eventually submit a reconciled line item, the Reconciled indicator turns blue, indicating that the item has moved to the next step in the approval process.

Approve from Inside the Expense Report

When you open an expense report sent for your approval, you will see all of the line items on the report. Unless they have compliance warnings, line items are marked as approved by default. You will see a green check mark on the line item in the list.

If all line items are ready to approve, click APPROVE and confirm approval.

If your organization has activated the Additional Approver feature, see Include an Additional Expense Approver to learn how to add a second approver to the report's routing process.

Adjust Line Items

Your organization's configuration determines whether you will see the RETURN, ADJUST, or REASSIGN buttons at the line-item level. If you see the ADJUST option, you can make changes to expense line items.

Clicking ADJUST will allow you to change the following:

• Expense Type*: You may also adjust the Expense Type Tile. Note that it is never possible to switch the expense type from or to the Per Diem or Hotel parent expense types. Additionally, your organization may have configurations that restrict switching to or from certain other expense types.
• Date*
• Approved Amount: Note that the adjusted amount may never exceed the original amount submitted by the expense owner.
• Business Purpose
• Description*
• Allocation: Note that approvers may not select "Personal Charge" for the allocation.
• User-Defined Fields (UDAs)*
• Tax: If your organization has this feature configured, you may delete individual tax entries in situations where they do not apply. Remove tax lines individually by clicking the X, or click REMOVE ALL to delete all tax lines. Clicking RESTORE ALL will restore the original tax information.

*Your organization must activate the ability to edit these fields via Access Permissions. See "Enable Enhanced Adjustment Capabilities for Expense Approvers" in the Access Permissions Admin Screen article.

You may also attach an image, drag an existing image from one line item to another, or drag an image from a line item to the header (and vice-versa).

You will be required to add an Adjustment Note, but, depending on your organization's configuration, you may decide whether to notify the expense owner of the adjustment. Adjustment notes have a 2,000-character limit.

Click SAVE. When you have made all the desired adjustments and are ready to complete the approval, click SUBMIT.

Return Line Items

Your organization's configuration determines whether you will see the RETURN, ADJUST, or REASSIGN buttons at the line-item level. If you see the RETURN option, you can return individual expense line items.

Return allows you to reject individual line items, with the exception of German Per Diem line items, which must all be returned together. 

When you click RETURN, you will be required to enter a comment explaining the reason for returning the line item to the expense owner. Return Comments have a 2,000-character limit. Clicking SAVE will mark the item to be returned but not actually return it. Until you click SUBMIT, the item has not been returned.

• For example, if you close the report without clicking SUBMIT and then later submit the report via an instant-approval method like Approve from Preview or by clicking APPROVE in the expense approval email, any items you had marked as "returned" will instead be approved.

After you click SAVE, the APPROVE button will reappear on the line-item previewto give you the option to undo your return. You must click SUBMIT (after reviewing the other line items on the report) to send the line item back to the expense owner.

Return All Line Items from Inside the Expense Report

The RETURN button in the lower left-hand corner of the report's line item list immediately returns all line items on the report, even those marked as approved. When you click it, you will be required to enter a comment, then click a second RETURN button under the comment.

Enter Comments

In addition to entering comments when you approve or return a report, you may enter comments directly from the Expense Summary preview on your Approvals Dashboard.

Bulk Approve, Return, or Reassign Expense Reports

If your organization has activated Chrome River's Bulk Approvals feature, you may approve, return or reassign multiple expenses simultaneously.

Check the boxes next to the desired expenses on the Approvals list, then click REASSIGN, RETURN or APPROVE at the bottom of the list.

• To select all the expenses currently loaded on the Dashboard, check the box at the top.

The selected expenses may be in multiple currencies, but the total expense amount will only be displayed if all the selected expenses are in the same currency.

You will see a different pop-up window depending on the function you select:

• Reassign: Select the approver to whom you are reassigning these reports. You may also enter a note.

• Return: You must enter a comment in order to proceed with the return.

• Approve: Verify that you are approving the correct number of reports before clicking APPROVE.

It is also possible to take action on only one expense report even if you have selected multiple reports in the list. Simply click that report to bring up its preview, then select the desired approval action button in the preview. Only that report will be approved, returned or reassigned. The other selected reports will remain selected for you to take approval action.