Quick answer
On Expenses, the To approve tab holds every claim waiting on you. Approve is one click; Reject asks for a reason the claimant is shown. Finance gets a second tab, To reimburse, listing approved claims — pay them, then record the bank or voucher reference against each one.
The approval step
Open To approve
Claims are listed oldest first, so the person who has been waiting longest is at the top.Read the claim
Who filed it, the category, what they say it was for, the amount, and the date they spent it.Approve
One click. The claimant is notified immediately and the claim moves to finance.Or reject with a reason
A rejection needs a reason — the claimant sees exactly what you wrote, so write something they can act on.
Managers only ever see claims from their own reporting line. HR admins and finance see the whole organisation. Either way, your own claims never appear in your queue — they go to somebody else.
The reimbursement step
Approving a claim says the spend was legitimate. It does not say the money moved. Finance closes that gap on the To reimburse tab:
Pay through your normal process
Bank transfer, payout run, petty cash — ASHR.work does not move the money.Mark reimbursed
Enter the reference your bank or voucher gives you.The claimant is told
They see the claim as Reimbursed, with that reference, so they can match it against their own bank statement.
Turning the module on
Expenses is off until a super-admin enables it for your organisation, in the module grid. Once it is on, everybody with a login gets the Expenses tab and can file claims; the approval and reimbursement tabs only appear for the people entitled to them.
Frequently asked questions
- Who can approve a claim?
- The claimant's manager, an HR admin, or finance. Managers see only the people who report to them, directly or further down the chain. Whoever decides, it can never be the person who filed it.
- Who can mark a claim reimbursed?
- Finance only. Approving a claim and paying it are deliberately different permissions, so a manager who signs off on spend cannot also assert that the money went out.
- Can a rejected claim be paid later?
- No. Rejection is terminal — the claim cannot be approved or reimbursed afterwards, and the database refuses it, not just the screen. If a rejection was a mistake, ask the claimant to file a fresh claim.
- What if two of us approve the same claim at once?
- The first decision wins. The second person is told the claim was already decided by someone else, rather than quietly overwriting the first decision.
- What is the payment reference for?
- It is how a claim is matched back to your bank statement or voucher. It is also the hook the accounting integration will use when that lands — recording it properly now means those claims reconcile later.
- Is any of this audited?
- Yes. Every submission, approval, rejection and reimbursement is written to the audit log with who did it and when. Admins read it under Admin.
This guide also lives in the help centre at /help/expenses/how-to-approve-and-reimburse-expenses, which is its canonical home.