What is this page about: This page explains how employee expense reimbursements work in Light, from the moment an employee submits an expense to the moment they get paid. It covers where to find reimbursements in the Light app, what each stage means, how to review and approve or reject one, and how payment happens. Written for anyone handling reimbursements: end users processing them day to day, and accounting or finance staff who need the GL, tax, and payment detail.
On this page
- How reimbursements reach Light
- Reimbursement tabs
- Reviewing a reimbursement
- Approving or rejecting a reimbursement
- Payment
- Related articles
A reimbursement is an employee expense that flows into accounts payable (AP) for payment. Reimbursements use the same Bills-style layout as vendor bills (Inbox, Approving, Scheduled, Paid, Discarded) but live on their own page in the Light app, so finance can manage them separately from vendor bills.
Open the Light app and go to Spend management → Reimbursements.
How reimbursements reach Light
Employees submit expenses from the Expenses page in the Light app, under Personal → Expenses in the sidebar: Open Expenses in Light →
Once an employee submits an expense, Light turns it into a reimbursement document. It appears in Reimbursements → Inbox for finance to review.
The flow: Expense (submitted by the employee) → Reimbursement (reviewed by finance) → Paid.
Reimbursement tabs
Reimbursements use the same five tabs as Bills in the Light app.
| Tab | Contains |
|---|---|
| Inbox | Newly submitted reimbursements |
| Approving | Reimbursements currently in approval |
| Scheduled | Approved reimbursements awaiting or in payment |
| Paid | Fully paid reimbursements |
| Discarded | Declined reimbursements |
Reviewing a reimbursement
Open any reimbursement in Light to see:
- The submitting employee
- Entity, currency, and amount
- Expense lines, each with a description, GL account, tax, and receipt attachments
- The approval log
Finance and accounting teams can use the GL account and tax fields on each expense line to code the reimbursement the same way they'd code a vendor bill.
Approving or rejecting a reimbursement
The Approve and Reject buttons only appear on an open reimbursement when you're the current next approver in the approval chain. If someone else needs to approve first, the reimbursement sits in Approving and you won't see these buttons yet.
- Approve moves the reimbursement forward in the approval chain. If you're the last required approver, it moves straight to the Scheduled tab for payment. If other approvers still need to act, it moves to (or stays in) Approving until they do.
- Reject opens a confirmation dialog titled Confirm reimbursement rejection, with an optional Add notes field for the reason. Confirming moves the reimbursement to the Discarded tab.
Rejecting from the ⋯ menu
There's a second way to reject a reimbursement. From the ⋯ menu on an open reimbursement, choose Reject to employee. This opens a different dialog, titled Add comment, with placeholder text "Reason for rejecting...". Its submit button reads Reject rather than Confirm. Either path ends with the reimbursement in Discarded, so use whichever fits your workflow.
Payment
Approved reimbursements move to the Scheduled tab and pay out through the same payment-batch flow as vendor bills. See Scheduling and Releasing Payments for that process.
Related articles
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