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Zoho Expense

Expense Report

A consolidated document submitted by an employee listing all expenses incurred during a period or trip, submitted for approval and reimbursement.

What Is an Expense Report?

An expense report is the primary submission unit in Zoho Expense. It is a grouped collection of individual expense entries that an employee compiles and submits to their manager or finance team for approval and reimbursement. Each report typically corresponds to a business trip, a project, or a monthly submission cycle.

Creating an Expense Report in Zoho Expense

Employees add expenses to a report by either uploading receipts (which Auto-Scan extracts data from), entering details manually, or importing from a connected corporate card feed. Once all expenses are added, the employee submits the report. Zoho Expense validates the entries against the active expense policy, flagging any violations before submission reaches the approver.

Expense Report Lifecycle

A report moves through several statuses: Draft, Submitted, Under Approval, Approved, and Reimbursed. At each stage, the relevant stakeholder (employee, manager, finance) takes action. Zoho Expense sends automated notifications at each transition, so no report gets stuck without visibility.

Can one report contain expenses from multiple trips?

Yes. An expense report is simply a container for expenses and is not strictly tied to a single trip. However, many organisations enforce a policy of one report per trip to keep approvals clean and audits straightforward. You can configure this in Zoho Expense’s policy settings.

What happens to a report if the approver rejects it?

If an approver rejects an expense report in Zoho Expense, the report is returned to the employee with comments explaining the reason. The employee can edit the flagged entries and resubmit the report for re-approval without starting from scratch.

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