What it is
The Expenses module is a native reimbursement and expense workflow that lives in TATER Ops. A single request can hold many line items — one per receipt — and each line is marked either reimbursable (out-of-pocket money the company owes you back) or company-card (already paid on a corporate card, captured only so finance can reconcile it). It replaces the fragile "Microsoft Form → Power Automate → spreadsheet row" intake that can silently break and drop submissions: in TATER, a failed submission is a visible error you can retry, never a silent gap.
How a request flows
- Submitted — you create the request with one or more line items. If any line is reimbursable and you supplied an approver — a member or an approval group — it appears in their My Approvals inbox.
- Approved / Rejected — an approver (or AP from the queue) decides. Approving means the reimbursable amount is cleared to pay.
- Paid — AP marks an approved request paid once the money is disbursed, optionally recording a payment reference (check #, ACH id).
- Logged — a request whose lines are all company-card has no payout, so it skips approval entirely and is recorded as Logged for reconciliation.
Submitting an expense
You can submit from two places — both use the same form:
- TATER Ops → Workspace → Expenses → + New expense
- My TATER → Personal → My Expenses → + New expense (the natural home for most employees)
For each line, enter the amount, a short description, the transaction date, and pick the payment type. Optionally add a category (travel, meals, supplies…) and attach a receipt image or PDF. Add as many lines as you have receipts, then submit. If you give an approver, reimbursable lines route straight to them; if not, AP picks it up from the queue.
Who the approver can be
Reimbursable submissions validate a designated approver before saving: choose another member of your organization or an organization approval group with valid members. An invalid address, an unresolved group or an empty group cannot approve the reimbursement. If routing becomes unavailable after the request is saved, it stays Submitted, not Approved; the form reports the problem and Accounts Payable can assign an approver. A submission without a designated approver awaits AP review.
An approver is either one member of your organization, or a reusable approval group — see the Universal Approval Engine for how groups are defined. A group is what a shared AP function usually wants: every member sees the request in their own My Approvals, and the group's decision mode (any one / all / quorum / percentage) applies.
A shared mailbox address is not an approver. Routing to one used to be accepted and produced a request nobody could act on: the notification reached whoever reads that mailbox, but My Approvals filters by the signed-in identity, so the person opening it was told there was nothing to approve — and the request could not be re-routed either, because it already held a pending approval. TATER now rejects an approver address that is not a member of the organization and tells you to use a member or a group instead. If AP wants a copy in the shared mailbox as well, forward it on the mail side; the approver itself must be an identity that can sign in.
Re-assigning an approver on a request that already has a pending approval now supersedes it — the old approval is cancelled and logged, and a fresh one is raised for the new approver. Previously this was refused, which left any misrouted request permanently stuck.
Where to set it. On the submit form, …or an approval group appears under the approver email box once groups exist (listing them needs Auditor or above, so most submitters see only the email field). On an existing Submitted request, Assign approver — Reassign approver when one is already routed — offers the org's groups first, with A specific person… to name one instead.
Receipts
Each line can carry one receipt (image or PDF, up to 10 MB). Receipts are stored in the same secure attachment store as Ops ticket attachments and are retained for audit. Anyone who can view the request — the submitter, anyone who works the AP queue, or someone the request was routed to for approval — can open a receipt via a short-lived secure download link.
If an upload cannot be confirmed, the request has already been created. The form names the affected lines and stays open. Choose Retry receipt uploads to retry those receipts on the same request, or close the form and open that request’s details. Do not file a second expense to recover a receipt.
In the request’s details, its submitter and AP administrators can choose Attach receipt or Replace receipt for a line. A named approver can view receipts but cannot attach them solely because they are an approver. Changing a receipt does not approve or pay an expense.
The AP queue (admins and AP staff)
The AP queue in Ops → Expenses lists every request in the organization. It is for org admins and for members holding the AP / Finance Ops, Ops Manager or Platform Admin permission bundle, so an AP clerk can stay an ordinary member and still work the queue. For those people the page opens on the queue; the scope selector switches between "AP queue (all)" and "My requests", and the page keeps your choice until you change organization. Other Ops bundles (IT Task Queue Worker, HR Ops, Client IT Technician, Contributor, Ops + Devices) do not include reimbursements, and an administrator whose bundles include none of those three does not see the queue or other people's requests either. From the queue you can:
- See KPI tiles — how many requests await a decision, the total approved-but-unpaid amount (pending payout), total paid, and total company-card spend logged.
- Open any request, review its line items and receipts, and Approve or Reject it.
- Mark paid on an approved request once the money goes out, with an optional payment reference.
Approvals also surface in My Approvals across the suite, so an approver can act there without opening the AP queue.
Reviewing a request routed to you
If a reimbursement is routed to you for approval — to you by name, or to an approval group you belong to — you can open it and its receipts before you decide, even if you do not otherwise work the AP queue. Use View on the request in My Approvals, or the link in the notification. The request opens in Ops with a Decide in My Approvals button, because that is where an approver who is not AP staff approves or rejects. You keep sight of the request after you decide it; you lose it if the request is routed to someone else before you do. An approver is not offered Cancel, which is for the submitter and AP.
Reporting
- TATER Insights → Reimbursements & Expenses (for the people who work the AP queue, as above) gives a per-employee breakdown — reimbursable submitted, paid, pending payout, and company-card spend — plus a status mix and the top spenders. Use it for period totals and company-card reconciliation.
- Every action (submit, approve, reject, pay, cancel) is written to the activity log, so the whole lifecycle is auditable.
For AI agents (MCP)
Six MCP tools let an AI assistant work expenses end-to-end:
list_expense_requests(read) — your own requests, or the AP queue withscope=queue(Admin or AP staff).get_expense_request(read) — full detail of one request including line items and receipts: your own, any request if you work the AP queue, or one routed to you for approval.create_expense_request(write) — submit a multi-line request on your behalf. Takesapprover_emailorapprover_group_id.assign_expense_approver(write, Admin or AP staff) — designate or re-assign the approver on a Submitted reimbursement, to a member or an approval group. Supersedes any pending approval.decide_expense_request(write, Admin or AP staff) — approve or reject a submitted request.mark_expense_paid(write, Admin or AP staff) — mark an approved request paid.
Notes & limits
- You can only see and act on your own requests unless you work the AP queue (an org admin, or a member with the AP / Finance Ops, Ops Manager or Platform Admin bundle), or a request has been routed to you for approval — which lets you see that request, not act on it outside My Approvals.
- A request can mix reimbursable and company-card lines; the status tracks the reimbursable workflow while the company-card lines ride along as logged records.
- You can cancel any request of yours that has not been paid; AP can cancel on a submitter's behalf. Being the approver does not let you cancel a request.
- Receipts are uploaded after the request is created (the submit form does this automatically), so the create step stays fast even with several large receipts.