Understand expense records in Sanka, including requests, receipts, approvals, reimbursements, disbursements, and accounting checkpoints.
Last updated: May 29, 2026
The Expense object stores business expense requests and records. Use expenses when employees or teams need to submit spend, attach receipts, route approval, prepare reimbursement, and keep finance context in one place.This reference explains what an expense represents, how it differs from bills and disbursements, and what to check before creating, approving, reimbursing, importing, or updating expenses with AI, CSV, actions, workflows, integrations, or manual entry.
What an expense record represents
An expense record represents business spend that needs review, approval, reimbursement, or accounting classification.It is different from:
Bill: a supplier invoice or payment request from an external business partner
Disbursement: the outgoing payment or reimbursement that actually happened
Payment: incoming money received from customers
Journal entry: the accounting impact created from or associated with the expense
Common fields include:
Expense ID or record ID
Submitter
Business partner, vendor, employee, department, project, or cost center
Record owner or approver
Payment date, reimbursement date, or due date
Status, such as draft, submitted, approved, rejected, reimbursed, or exported
Amount, tax treatment, currency, category, and memo
Receipt, invoice, card statement, or other attachment
Related disbursement, bill, journal entry, accounting export, or approval workflow
Source details from CSV imports, integrations, actions, workflows, or AI-assisted creation
Expense fields and statuses can be customized by workspace admins. If a category, approver, status, required field, or option is missing, check object settings, property settings, and approval configuration before treating it as a bug.
How expenses connect to other records
Expenses sit between employee or company spend and finance review.
Employees and submitters: who spent the money or requested reimbursement
Companies and contacts: the vendor, merchant, client, or payee
Disbursements: reimbursement or outgoing payment records
Bills: supplier invoices that should be handled as payables instead of employee expenses
Journal entries and accounting exports: accounting records created from or associated with the expense
Files: receipts, invoices, statements, and approval evidence
Approval workflows: routing based on amount, department, category, project, or policy
If a reimbursement exists but the expense still looks unpaid or unreimbursed, check whether the disbursement is associated and whether the expense status was updated.
Review an expense with AI
Ask AI to review the receipt, policy context, duplicates, approval route, and reimbursement state before submitting or marking an expense as reimbursed.
Sample prompt
/sanka Review this Sanka expense before making changes. Show the submitter, vendor, amount, tax treatment, currency, date, category, receipt attachment, duplicate candidates, approval route, related disbursement or reimbursement, accounting export status, and missing information. Do not submit, approve, reimburse, mark paid, or update records yet.
After the review, confirm whether the expense should stay as a draft, be submitted, be returned for more information, be approved, be prepared for reimbursement, or be linked to accounting review.
Create an expense
Open Expense and click New.
Enter the required information and select the business partner or vendor.
If the partner is not registered, create the company or contact first.
Enter the amount.
Enter the payment date and reimbursement or due date.
Set the status according to your workflow.
Add a description and attach the receipt, invoice, or statement file.
Click Create.
The expense appears in the expense list.
Expected behavior
When an expense is created successfully:
It appears in the Expense object list unless it is archived or filtered out by the current view.
The submitter, partner, dates, amount, status, memo, receipt, and related records are saved.
It can be routed through approval workflows when your workspace uses approvals.
It can be associated with disbursements, bills, journal entries, accounting exports, and files when your workspace uses those records.
It may be created manually, imported from CSV, generated from AI-reviewed receipts, synced from integrations, or created by actions and workflows.
It does not automatically mean the requester has been reimbursed.
Expense approval and reimbursement are separate steps unless your workspace intentionally combines them in a workflow. Reimbursement should usually have payment proof, a disbursement, payroll context, or another finance record.For the AI-first expense flow, see Expense reimbursement and approval.
Update or archive expenses
To edit an expense, open the record from the list, update the information, and click Update.To hide an expense from active views, select the expense and choose Archive.Archived expenses are hidden or visually separated from active records depending on the current view.Use Activate to return an archived expense to active views.Archiving an expense does not automatically remove related disbursements, journal entries, approvals, files, or history.
Troubleshooting
An expense is missing from the list
Check whether it is archived, filtered out by the current view, assigned to another owner, or hidden by permissions.
A duplicate expense was submitted
Compare submitter, vendor, receipt date, amount, currency, category, attachment, card statement, and source details before approving or reimbursing either record.
The receipt does not match the entered amount
Check tax, tip, service fee, currency, exchange rate, split payments, unreadable receipt details, and whether the expense includes multiple receipt lines.
The expense is approved but not reimbursed
Check whether reimbursement is a separate disbursement, payroll, company card, or accounting step. Do not mark the expense as reimbursed until payment handling is confirmed.
A user cannot submit, approve, or reimburse an expense
Check module access, object permissions, owner assignment, approval workflow requirements, and access to related employee, partner, disbursement, or accounting records.
Checkpoints
Before approving or reimbursing an expense, confirm the receipt, approval route, reimbursement method, and accounting state together.
2Approved expense2026/05/12 14:42Client dinner expenseManager approved the request after receipt reviewSanka user
1Prepared reimbursement2026/05/12 15:20Client dinner expenseLinked approved expense to reimbursement draftSanka user
Expenses should be checked with receipts, approval history, disbursements, reimbursement records, and accounting exports before finance-facing updates.
The expense appears in the expense list.
To hide an expense from active views, select the expense and choose Archive.
Archived expenses are hidden or visually separated from active records depending on the current view.
Use Activate to return an archived expense to active views.
Archiving an expense does not automatically remove related disbursements, journal entries, approvals, files, or history.
