Expense reports can be created directly from approved travel authorizations, which eliminates entering expense items covered in the travel authorization.

Once you create an expense report, you can track its status and see where it is in the approval flow.

Expense reports enable employees to submit work-related expenses, such as hotel and airfare charges incurred during business travel, for reimbursement.

Expense reports involve these basic steps (see the process flow diagram for a detailed description of the process):

1. A user, known as the requester, creates an expense report and submits it for approval. The user might also need to send receipts (either hardcopy or images) to the Accounts Payable department. Ariba Buyer notifies designated approvers that an expense report is waiting for their approval.
2. Approvers approve or deny the expense report:
• If approved, an Accounts Payable (A/P) specialist reviews the expense information online, and matches the receipts to the online information. Typically the A/P specialist helps resolve any discrepancies between the expense report and the receipts.
• If denied, the user can edit and resubmit the expense report.
3. When the expense report is fully approved, the A/P specialist enters the receipt information into Ariba Buyer and the Payroll department processes the user's reimbursement.