On the Review and approval page, approvers review their employees' trips and receipts and approve or reject them. You open the page via Team → Review and approval. The menu item is displayed if the logged-in user has the Approve expenses for user (approver) permission and at least one employee is assigned to them.
You specify which employees a user reviews and which approval rule applies under TEAM → Administration → select the user by name → Review/Release tab. Your own expenses never appear on your approval page. They are reviewed by your own approvers.
Page layout
The page has two tabs: Under review and Approved. On the right, the Status box shows how many expenses are currently under review and how many are approved. The box updates automatically; the time under Last update shows when it was last refreshed.
Under review
On the Under review tab, two fields control the list:
- Employee selection: By default, all employees assigned to you are selected. Deselect individual employees to narrow down the list. Next to each name, you can see how many of their expenses are waiting. If your selection hides open expenses, a notice points this out. Click Show all to see all of them again.
- Show:
- My open reviews: expenses waiting for your decision. This is the default view.
- All expenses in review: also includes expenses you have already decided on that are still waiting for other approvers.
- Already decided by me: only the expenses you have already approved that are still waiting for other approvers.
The number in brackets shows how many expenses each view contains. If All must approve does not apply to any of your employees, the Show field is not displayed.
If an employee submits something or another approver decides while your page is open, a notice tells you that there are new or changed expenses under review. Click Refresh list to reload the list.
The review card
Every expense appears as a separate card. At the top you see its name and the employee, on the right the amounts under Sum and Payment sum as well as the Approve and Reject buttons. Below that you see:
- Remarks from the employee, their deputy and other approvers, each with their name
- for trips: period, destination, scope (number of receipts and rides with a private or company car) as well as cost center and cost unit
- for individual receipts: receipt date, payment method, receipt type, VAT, cost center and cost unit
- the progress with the rule All must approve, for example “1 of 2 approved”, and below it Still pending with the approvers who still have to decide
- History (n): all status changes with date, time and the approvers' decisions (see status history)
Trip details: Details expands the Days (travel days with country and meal allowance), Receipts (date, description, payment method, receipt type, VAT, amount) and Rides (date, description, vehicle, kilometers, amount) sections. One of them is open at a time.
View the original receipt
For receipts, you can use the paperclip icon to view the uploaded original receipt. This is available for both individual receipts and receipts that are part of a trip.
Click the paperclip icon to open the original receipt. This allows you to compare the uploaded receipt directly with the receipt data entered in Spesenfuchs while reviewing the expense.
Additional information for entertainment receipts
For an entertainment receipt, an additional information icon (i) is displayed. Click the icon to open a dialog containing the additional information entered for the entertainment receipt.
The dialog shows:
- the persons entertained,
- the place of entertainment,
- the occasion, and
- whether only internal employees were entertained.
This allows you to review the additional information entered for the entertainment receipt without leaving the approval view.
Foreign currencies and exchange rates
For receipts in foreign currencies, an icon is displayed next to the amount. Click this icon to view the exchange rate information used for the conversion.
- A green icon indicates that the automatically determined system exchange rate was used to convert the foreign currency.
- An orange icon indicates that the employee entered a custom exchange rate.
Clicking the icon opens a detailed view of the exchange rate information used. It shows:
- the exchange rate actually used,
- the automatically determined system exchange rate,
- the date of the system exchange rate,
- the amount in the foreign currency, and
- the resulting amount in euros.
If a custom exchange rate was used, Spesenfuchs also shows the impact on the reimbursement. You can see whether the reimbursement is higher or lower compared with the system exchange rate and the amount of the difference.
This allows you to understand during the approval process why the employee used a different exchange rate and what financial impact the difference has.
Approve
- Click Approve on the card.
- If needed, add a remark for the employee and one for accounting. Both are optional.
- Confirm with Approve.
If All must approve applies and other approvers are still missing, the expense remains under review. The card then shows Approved by you and who is still pending. If One approval is sufficient applies, the expense is approved with your approval.
Approve several expenses at once
If the same employee has several expenses waiting for you, the Approve dialog offers a checkbox to approve all of them together, for example “Approve all 2 expenses from Anna Schmidt”. The remarks then apply to all of them. Afterwards, Spesenfuchs tells you how many expenses were approved and how many are still waiting for other approvers.
Reject
- Click Reject on the card.
- Enter a Reason. It is required, because the employee needs it to make corrections.
- Confirm with Reject.
The expense is then rejected, even if other approvers have already approved it. The dialog names who can correct it: the employee or, for passive employees, their deputy. Once corrected, the expense is submitted again and reappears on your page.
If the expense has changed in the meantime
If someone changed the expense while your page was open, Spesenfuchs does not carry out your decision. You see a notice, the list is updated, and you can decide again. This applies, for example, if
- another approver has already decided,
- the employee has taken the expense back or deleted it, or
- an administrator has removed you as an approver.
Approved
The Approved tab shows your employees' approved expenses from the last 180 days that you were involved in. Each card shows the remarks of all approvers and a line such as “Approved on 30.10.2026 by Clara Example”.
You no longer make decisions on this tab. If an approved expense needs to be changed again, this is possible via Edit again on the expense's status badge. It must then be submitted and reviewed again. After export, only an administrator can change the status.
Other ways to decide
You don't always have to open the approval page. The dialogs are the same everywhere.
- Dashboard: In the Review and approval tile, expand an entry and choose Approve or Reject directly (see Dashboard).
- Status badge: In the trip and receipt lists, clicking the status of an expense opens a menu with Approve, Reject and Edit again.
Frequently asked questions
Why is an expense no longer listed under My open reviews?
You have already decided, another approver has already approved it under One approval is sufficient, someone has rejected it, or the expense was taken back or deleted. Also check the Employee selection and the Show field. The history shows what happened.
What applies to locked employees?
Their expenses under review remain visible and can still be decided. They are marked Locked.
Further information
For more information on how the approval rules work and what applies to deputies, see the article Approval workflow.