Approve Expense Claims And Reimburse

When a staff member spends their own money on the organisation’s behalf, the claim travels a clean path: it is filed against a category, decided through the approval engine, and — once approved — reimbursed exactly once, either folded into the next pay run or paid out immediately. This page is the manager/HR side of that path, end to end.

Who / when: the HR Manager or Line Manager maintains categories and reimburses approved claims; the manager in the claim’s approval chain decides it. A category groups claims (Travel, Meals, Training…) and may carry a per-claim cap. The approval engine is the shared chain that routes a claim to the right approver(s) by amount. Reimburse via tells Veona how the money goes back: Payroll (an add-on on the next pay run) or an immediate PettyCash / BankTransfer payout. The eSign PIN is your 6-digit electronic signature. We’ll follow Bola, an HR manager. (Employees submit their own claims — that side is Submit And Track My Expense Claims.)

The main path

1. HR Manager (Bola) — open Human Resources → Payroll & Expenses → Expenses. The “All Claims” tab lists every claim with its employee, title, category, total and status; the “Categories” tab is the catalogue.
2. HR Manager — to set up the catalogue, switch to “Categories”, press “New Category”, give it a name, currency and an optional “Per-Claim Cap”, and press “Create”. (Categories drive what employees can pick and cap what a single claim may total.)
3. Approver — decide a submitted claim. A claim routes through the approval engine the moment the employee submits it, so the decision is made in Human Resources → Approvals → My Approvals, not on this screen — see Decide HR Requests In My Approvals. Approve it and it becomes “Approved” (and shows on the Expenses screen ready to reimburse); reject it and it becomes “Rejected”. The employee is notified either way.
4. HR Manager — back on Human Resources → Payroll & Expenses → Expenses, find the approved claim under “All Claims” and press “Mark Reimbursed”. This is the step that actually moves money. Veona reads the claim’s reimburse via and acts accordingly, then stamps the claim “Reimbursed”.

Note

The claim moving to “Approved” does not pay anyone — it only clears it for payment. Reimbursement is the separate, deliberate “Mark Reimbursed” action, so approving and disbursing are distinct steps with their own trail.

Caution

“Mark Reimbursed” only appears on “Approved” claims, and you need the expense-approve permission to use it. A claim that is still Submitted, already Reimbursed, or Rejected has no reimburse button — Veona will not let a claim be paid twice or paid before it is approved.

Other ways this goes

Editing an existing category

1. HR Manager — open Human Resources → Payroll & Expenses → Expenses, switch to “Categories”, and open the category you want to change.
2. Adjust the name, the per-claim cap, or toggle it active/inactive, and save. Making a category inactive keeps it on past claims but takes it out of the picker for new ones.

Reimburse via payroll on the next pay run

1. HR Manager — press “Mark Reimbursed” on a claim whose method is Payroll.
2. Veona queues a Pending payout. It does not move money now; instead the next pay run you build picks it up as a non-taxable earning add-on on that employee’s payslip, bumps their net pay, and records the run against the payout. Build the run as usual — see Build, Approve And Pay A Pay Run.

Reimburse via an immediate petty-cash or bank-transfer payout

1. HR Manager — press “Mark Reimbursed” on a claim whose method is PettyCash or BankTransfer.
2. Veona records the payout as Paid immediately — the money leaves outside payroll (the drawer, or a bank transfer you run), and the claim is marked “Reimbursed” at once. No pay run is involved.

Idempotent: one payout per claim

1. HR Manager — if you press “Mark Reimbursed” on a claim that has already been reimbursed, Veona refuses: “This claim has already been reimbursed.”
2. Each claim can produce exactly one payout. You can never accidentally pay the same expense twice.

Viewing the reimbursement payouts ledger

1. HR Manager — the reimbursement payouts (the real disbursements — their reference, method, amount, status and the pay run for payroll ones) are recorded as a ledger Veona maintains as you reimburse.
2. Each payout ties back to its claim and the staff member, so finance has a clean record of what was paid back, how, and when.

Blocked: no expense-approve permission

1. A user without the permission — opens Human Resources → Payroll & Expenses → Expenses, sees the claims, but has no “New Category” and no “Mark Reimbursed”; the server denies category writes and reimbursement either way.
2. Maintaining categories and reimbursing are privileged HR/manager authorities — deny-by-default. Submitting a claim, by contrast, is the self-service floor any employee has.

What happens next

The approved claim is now “Reimbursed” with a payout on the ledger, and the employee has been notified. Payroll-method payouts ride the next pay run into the staff member’s net pay; petty-cash and bank-transfer ones are already disbursed. Employees can watch their own claims move from submitted to reimbursed in Submit And Track My Expense Claims.

Follow the trail

• Previous: Build, Approve And Pay A Pay Run
• Related: Build, Approve And Pay A Pay Run · Submit And Track My Expense Claims · Configure Approval Chains And Delegations