Once expenses have been added to Teamleader Focus, you can either approve or refuse them. That way, you can keep track of which expenses are ready to be paid, which expenses you still need to check or which expenses aren’t correct or you don’t agree with. In this article, we’ll walk you through the review process, so you can stay in control and keep things moving forward.

Do you prefer to watch our instructive video first? You can do so right here:

There are 3 review statuses for expenses:

• Approved
• Pending
• Refused
   

All expenses added to your account will have the review status ‘Pending’. This status is specifically handy for internal use, as a reminder to yourself that you still need to check if the information in the expense is correct, e.g. an invoice you’ve received from your supplier. 
 

Change the status of an expense by following these steps:

1. Navigate to the expense and open it
2. Click on Mark as approved (or on the arrow next to the button to Mark it as refused) 
   
    
3. If you go to the expense details you’ll find the ‘Activities’ below that’ll display the review history too:
   
   
    
4. Next, you can send approved expenses to your bookkeeper. Read all about it here.
    

! If you have a Belgian company entity and you’ve enabled Peppol for receiving e-invoices in your account, then; 

• Initially, your supplier will know that you’ve received the invoice;
• Additionally your supplier will know when you’ve approved or refused the invoice too as the review status will get sent back to your supplier via Peppol;
• In the ‘Activities’ of your incoming invoice you’ll also find all Peppol-related activities:
   

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What if I’ve received an invoice that’s already been paid via direct debit? Why do I still need to approve it? 
If you’ve received an invoice that’s already been paid via direct debit, it’s still useful to check and approve the invoice, to evaluate if what’s been invoiced to you is correct. If not, you can contact your supplier to create a credit note and adjust the invoice accordingly.
 

What if I’ve made a mistake and approved my expense instead of refusing it? 

• If it’s an expense that’s not an incoming invoice via Peppol: no problem! Just return to your expense and adapt the review status accordingly.
• If it’s an incoming invoice via Peppol: the review status only gets sent once to your supplier. Refusing the invoice after approving it won’t be sent to your supplier. Contact your supplier in this case to credit the invoice and create another one. 
   

Notes

• Review status ≠ payment status: Keep in mind that approving an expense is not the same as actually paying it or marking it as paid. We’re currently working on this functionality.
• Incoming invoices via Peppol: if you refuse an invoice via Peppol, it’s not possible to also share the refusal reason back to your supplier. Contact them if you need to provide additional feedback.
• Everyone with access to Expenses will also have approval/refusal rights.