Approving Expenses

As a coordinator or designated approver, you review expense submissions from guests and decide whether to approve, reject, or partially reimburse them. You can also recategorize expenses during review to apply the correct policy caps.

Accessing Expense Approvals

When guests submit expenses that require your review, you’ll see:

1. An “Action Required” badge on the guest’s name in your dashboard
2. An alert showing the number of expenses needing review
3. Each expense displayed with merchant details, amount, date, and any policy violations

Click on an expense to open the approval drawer and review the details.

Approval Drawer

The approval drawer shows:

• Expense details — Merchant name, amount, date, currency
• Category — The expense category (e.g., meals, transportation, lodging)
• Policy status — Whether the expense is in-policy, out-of-policy, exceeds limits, or is blocked
• Receipts — Attached receipt images (if required)
• Memo — Guest’s explanation or notes
• Policy details — Category caps and allowances from the applicable expense policy

Approval Actions

Approve

Approve the full expense amount for reimbursement. Use this when:

• The expense is within policy limits
• You’ve reviewed and accepted an out-of-policy expense
• The guest has provided sufficient documentation

Click Approve to reimburse the full submitted amount. If your organization has configured approval reasons, you also select a reason recording why you accepted the expense — guests never see approval reasons.

Reject

Reject the expense completely. Use this when:

• The expense violates policy and shouldn’t be reimbursed
• The category is not allowed by the policy
• Documentation is insufficient or invalid

Click Reject and provide a reason that will be visible to the guest. If your organization has configured rejection reasons, you pick a reason from that list and the guest-facing details are pre-filled from it — pick Other to write your own. Expense rejections notify the guest directly (subject to their notification preferences) and cannot be routed to the travel or support team for follow-up.

Partially Approve

Approve a reduced amount for reimbursement. Use this when:

• The expense exceeds category spending limits but part of it is valid
• You want to reimburse up to the policy cap and have the guest cover the overage
• The expense is partially justified

Click Partially Approve, enter the approved amount (up to the maximum allowed by policy), and optionally provide an explanation.

Reverse a Decision

If you manually approved, partially reimbursed, or rejected an expense and need to correct that decision, use Reverse decision from the reviewed expense state.

• Reversal sends the expense back to Needs Review
• You can then approve, partially reimburse, reject, or recategorize it again
• Reversal is available only before a payout has been created for that expense

If a payout has already been created, Juno shows that the decision can no longer be reversed.

If Juno refuses a reversal because the expense changed after you opened it (for example, a payout was created or someone else updated the decision), refresh the page to see its current state.

Refunds of approval-time charges

If your organization is charged for each expense when it’s approved, reversing an approval refunds that charge:

• If the charge has already gone through, the confirmation explains that the full amount charged for the expense, including the processing fee, will be refunded to the card it was charged to.
• If the charge is still in progress, the confirmation explains that it will be refunded if it goes through.

Refunds aren’t instant. After the reversal, the expense’s review drawer shows the refund’s status, with the amount:

• Refund pending: the refund has been requested and is being processed. The status updates while the approvals list is open; refresh the page if it hasn’t changed.
• Refunded: the amount was refunded to the card it was charged to.
• Refund failed: the refund didn’t go through. Contact Juno support if you need help with a failed refund.

Changing an approved expense that’s been charged

While an approved expense’s approval-time charge is in progress or has gone through, you can’t change it directly to a different approved amount or reject it. Juno keeps the charge at the amount you approved, so a direct change would leave your organization charged the wrong amount.

To change the decision, use Reverse decision first. This is available before a payout has been created for the expense. Then approve the new amount, partially reimburse, or reject the expense. Any original charge is refunded automatically, as described above.

Expenses that were approved automatically can’t be reversed here. Contact Juno support to change one.

Recategorizing Expenses

You can change an expense’s category during the approval process. This is useful when:

• The guest selected the wrong category when submitting
• The expense fits better under a different category with different caps
• You need to apply a different policy rule to the expense

How to Recategorize

1. Open the expense approval drawer
2. Locate the Category field in the expense details
3. Click the pencil icon next to the category name to edit inline
4. Select a different category from the dropdown
5. Review the preview modal showing how the expense will be evaluated under the new category
6. Click Save and re-evaluate to confirm the change

The drawer will immediately update to show the new category and refreshed policy details without requiring a manual refresh.

Recategorization Preview

Before confirming a category change, you’ll see:

• Policy status — Whether the expense would be in-policy under the new category
• Overage amount — How much the expense exceeds the new category’s cap (if applicable)
• Cap type — Whether the cap applies per day, per trip, or in total
• Maximum partial approval amount — The ceiling for partial approval under the new category

This preview helps you understand the policy impact before committing the change.

Restrictions

You can only recategorize expenses when:

• ✅ The expense is out-of-pocket (not mileage)
• ✅ The approval status is Needs Review
• ✅ The expense has not been cancelled

Once you’ve approved, rejected, or cancelled an expense, the category can no longer be changed.

If you need to change a manually approved or rejected expense before payout creation, reverse the decision first so the expense returns to Needs Review.

Auto-Approval Cancellation

Some expenses are set to auto-approve after a waiting period (configured in the expense policy). When you recategorize an expense that’s scheduled for auto-approval:

• The auto-approval is immediately cancelled
• You must manually approve, partially approve, or reject the expense
• The guest is not notified about the category change until you take final action

This ensures you have control over the final decision after changing the category.

Best Practices

• Review receipts carefully — Check that receipts match the submitted amount and merchant
• Provide rejection reasons — Help guests understand why an expense wasn’t approved
• Use partial approval for overages — When part of an expense is valid, reimburse up to the policy cap
• Recategorize when appropriate — Correct miscategorized expenses to apply the right policy rules
• Act promptly — Guests are waiting for reimbursement decisions

Next Steps

• Reassigning Approvals — Move an approval to another coordinator or admin when they should make the decision
• Out of Office and Backup Approvers — Route new approval requests to a backup approver while you’re away
• Expense Policies — Understand how expense policies are configured
• Extending Expense Deadlines — Give guests more time to submit expenses
• Managing Invites — Monitor guest progress and approvals